Despite the excitement and wall-to-wall media coverage of this year鈥檚 presidential nominating contests, Texas still had voter participation rates during this year鈥檚 primaries 鈥� about 21 percent.
Some Texans are trying to fix this problem by innovating the way we administer elections here in the Lone Star State.
A company based in Austin, , recently debuted an app, created in partnership with , that would make it easier to register people to vote. It鈥檚 called Voter Pal. Joe Santori, the founder of Think Voter, explained that with just a smartphone and an ID, it takes roughly 15 seconds to register someone to vote using the app.
鈥淵our device switches to a camera mode, and the app focuses in and very quickly has captured the information on the back of your ID via the QR code,鈥� he said.
The app then takes that information and populates all the fields people need to fill out when they register to vote. And in just a few clicks you鈥檙e registered鈥攁lmost.
鈥淚t gives you the last bit of instructions, which is you are going to email this and print this form,鈥� Santori explains upon running through the very final step on the app.
鈥淚n Texas, you have to place a wet signature on a voter registration form. So the necessary evil is printing it, signing it and mailing it. This is where it gets hard.鈥�
This app hits a brick wall: In Texas, online voter registration isn't legal. So,Santorisaid, there鈥檚 really no way to make this last step easier.
鈥淭his is where online voter registration would be really powerful. Instead of printing out the form and mailing it all and signing it, you鈥檇 be done,鈥� he said.
For folks in the tech industry, like Santori and his co-founder Jeff Cardenas, this is pretty frustrating.
Cardenas said the whole point is to make this process as simple as possible.
鈥淚 would definitely say that the laws that we have in place are a hindrance to innovation,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e can do just about anything online. You can get a mortgage now with Rocket Mortgage. There鈥檚 a lot of other things, and the question we get asked all the time is, 鈥榃hy is it so difficult to participate when the goal is to participate?鈥欌��
According to Cardenas, online voter registration is cheaper, more accurate and more efficient.
In the tech world, this kind of efficiency would have been implemented a while ago, but things move slowly in state government.
This was a lesson that state Rep. Celia Israel, D-Austin, learned during her first legislative session last year.
鈥淚 introduced , which would have allowed for online voter registration, and I have never seen a bill with so much support not get an early hearing and get out of the House, at least,鈥� she said.
Seventy-six representatives co-authored the bill [see the full bill text above], but it still got slow-tracked. It got a last minute hearing as sort of a courtesy, Israel said, and at that point there was no way it would pass before the session ended. She says some Republican leaders in the Legislature were raising concerns.
鈥淭o give you a story from the floor one of my colleagues said, 鈥楥elia, if we pass this, what's to prevent you from going to one of these music festivals here in Austin that you are so proud of, and you go up and down the line, and get people registered to vote?鈥欌�� Israel recalled. 鈥淚 said, 鈥楢bsolutely nothing. That鈥檚 the point.' So, there is a fear about people voting and being more engaged in voting.鈥�
That fear was summed up by Alan Vera with the Republican Party of Harris County.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 at stake here for you three young Republican state reps?鈥� 鈥淭he State of Colorado, your counterparts, passed online voter registration in 2010. Colorado is a red state. How could it hurt? Four years later they don鈥檛 have their jobs, and Colorado is not a red state anymore. That鈥檚 what this is about.鈥�
For others, this is about solving a growing problem here in Texas. The state has notoriously bad voter participation, which is why Cardenas said lawmakers need to embrace change.
鈥淭he way that we have been doing things in the past is clearly not working, because it鈥檚 not bringing in more people into the process,鈥� Cardenas explained. 鈥淪o, we need to do something different, and now we have technology that is making it easier to do things.鈥�
Cardenas describes bringing voting into the 21st century as a long war. Online voter registration is just the first battle they have to win.
Cinde Weatherby with the Texas League of Women Voters said her group and others are already gearing up for next year鈥檚 legislative session.
鈥淲e are working on this issue right now,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e have already have begun to talk with people around the state.鈥�
31 states plus Washington, D.C. have online registration鈥搕hat includes Texas' neighbors Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Another three states have recently passed legislation to create online voter registration systems and are now working on implementing them.
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