Bridget Grumet: Paper voter registration system is 'absurd.' But Texas does it anyway

I’m not saying I could hear the anguished cries of Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant from across town. But I knew he’d be worked up about this one. Here was the headline from KUT and The Texas Tribune: “Texas says supply chain issues have limited the number of voter registration forms it can give out.” That’s right. As roughly 1,500 people a day move to Texas, and as we’re heading into a big election year where the governor and other races will be decided, the secretary of state’s office is carefully rationing its distribution of voter registration forms because … there’s a paper shortage. “When I saw the headline, I said, ‘I know how we could reduce paper,’” Elfant told me. As Travis County’s voting registrar, Elfant has argued for years that Texas should adopt an online voter registration system — something 40 other states, red and blue alike, have used quite safely for years. (Two more states are developing such systems now.)

“The idea that we still have a paper-based (voter registration) system is just absurd,” Elfant continued. And then he went for the jugular. “Oklahoma is ahead of us, for God’s sake. We know we don’t want to be behind Oklahoma on anything.” Unlike Elfant, you probably don’t spend much time thinking about Texas’ voter registration system, paper or otherwise. But this struck me as a good moment to discuss how Texas’ stubborn refusal to embrace online voter registration – an innovation that would clearly make it easier to vote – leaves our state with less accurate voter rolls at a greater cost to taxpayers. Right now, when you register to vote, you fill out a paper form, including your name, birth date and driver’s license number. That paper form goes to the county registrar — in Travis County, that’s Elfant’s office — where a worker types the information into a computer system. From there, the process is fully digital. The information is electronically submitted to the Texas secretary of state’s office, which checks the applicant’s information against other databases. The state then sends Elfant’s office a list of the verified applicants who should be added to the voter rolls. Online voter registration would simply take out the middleman, that data entry person at Elfant’s office. People would enter their information into a secure website.