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Pennsylvania, a battleground state that might play an outsize position within the 2024 presidential election, will start to robotically register new voters as a part of its driver’s license and state ID approval course of, officers stated on Tuesday.
This system, which was introduced by Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, is just like these provided in 23 different states and the District of Columbia, in response to the Nationwide Convention of State Legislatures.
Voters should meet sure eligibility necessities, which embody being a U.S. citizen and a Pennsylvania resident for a minimum of 30 days earlier than an election. In addition they should be a minimum of 18 years outdated on the date of the subsequent election.
“Automated voter registration is a common sense step to make sure election safety and save Pennsylvanians time and tax {dollars},” Mr. Shapiro stated in a press release. “Residents of our Commonwealth already present proof of identification, residency, age and citizenship on the D.M.V. — all the data required to register to vote — so it makes good sense to streamline that course of with voter registration.”
Within the 2020 election and the midterm races final yr, Pennsylvania was a hotbed of falsehoods about voter fraud, promoted by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies. Republicans within the state have mounted a sequence of unsuccessful authorized challenges over voters’ eligibility and absentee ballots that didn’t have dates written on their return envelopes, which a state regulation requires.
Whereas voting rights teams heralded Pennsylvania’s steps to develop entry to the polls, Mr. Trump’s loyalists attacked them and sought to sow additional mistrust about voting integrity within the state.
“I can promise you, there shall be no citizenship verification,” Stephen Miller, a high White Home adviser to Mr. Trump, wrote on X, the social media platform previously often called Twitter.
The transfer to computerized voter registration, which begins Tuesday, comes as each Republicans and Democrats regulate the state because the 2024 race heats up.
The state the place President Biden was born, Pennsylvania may decide not solely whether or not he’s elected to a second time period, but additionally whether or not Democrats keep management of the carefully divided Senate. Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat in his third time period, is dealing with a key re-election check.
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