Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro’s decision to unilaterally implement automatic voter registration (AVR) in Pennsylvania likely violates the Constitution and state law, several election experts told The Federalist.
On Wednesday, Shapiro announced that the commonwealth would join over 20 other states in implementing AVR through its Department of Transportation (PennDOT). According to a press release from the governor’s office, Pennsylvania residents who are eligible to vote and can “obtain[] new or renewed driver licenses and ID cards” at facilities such as the DMV “will be automatically taken through the voter registration application process unless they opt out of doing so.”
Individuals must be U.S. citizens, Pennsylvania residents, and residents of their district at least 30 days before the next election to register to vote, according to the directive. Eligible voters are also required to be 18 years old “on the date of the next election.”
While legacy media have gone out of the way to regurgitate Shapiro’s talking points, hyping Pennsylvania’s launch of AVR, almost none of these so-called “news” organizations have bothered to question the legality of the governor’s directive. While speaking with The Federalist, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, suggested that Shapiro’s decision to implement AVR via executive fiat appears to violate state law, which stipulates that a voter registration application completed at the DMV “shall serve as an application to register to vote unless the applicant fails to sign [it].”
“In other words, [the] DMV can’t register someone to vote unless they
