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Cook County Clerk David Orr Lauds Passage Of Automatic Voter Registration Bill


expanded early voting Automatic Voter Registration
Cook County Clerk David Orr announces Expanded Early Voting for the November 8, 2016 Presidential Election. (Official Clerk’s Office Photo by Bryan Docter)

Chicago, IL-(ENEWSPF)- Cook County Clerk David Orr praised the passage in the Illinois legislature of an Automatic Voter Registration for Illinois. He urges Gov. Bruce Rauner to sign the bill into law.

Orr’s statement follows:

I am glad that the Illinois legislature, in another bipartisan vote, has passed an Automatic Voter Registration bill and I encourage Gov. Bruce Rauner to sign the bill now.

SB 1933 is a good bill for Illinois. It would make our voter rolls cleaner and more inclusive, streamline the process of voter registration while taking the burden off the backs of eligible voters and shifting the responsibility where it belongs – with government. Plus, it would be a natural registration fraud fighter.

This is not the first time that an Automatic Voter Registration bill has made it to Gov. Rauner’s desk. About a year ago, he voiced concerns about the previous bill and vetoed it.

The bill’s sponsors and supporters went back to work, reached out and received additional input and made changes to the AVR bill. As a result, Automatic Voter Registration has substantial bipartisan support, and this is the time for Gov. Rauner to sign it into law.

Illinois had the chance last year to become the sixth state in the nation to implement Automatic Voter Registration. If SB 1933 becomes law today, Illinois will be the ninth state with Automatic Voter Registration, though more states that are currently considering it could beat us to AVR. We can’t allow Illinois to fall further behind when it comes to modernizing our voter rolls.

Once again, as I said last year, hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans remain registered at addresses where they don’t live. It’s time for a spring cleaning. This can be accomplished quite simply and quite easily by implementing AVR in Illinois.

I am grateful to AVR’s strong supporters throughout the state and am hopeful that Gov. Rauner will sign this bill so we can implement Automatic Voter Registration in Illinois.


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