National Voter Registration Act

National Voter Registration Act of 1993

Long title	An Act to establish national voter registration procedures for Federal elections, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial)	NVRA
Nicknames	National Voter Registration Act, Motor Voter
Enacted by	the 103rd United States Congress
Effective	January 1, 1995
Citations
Public law	103-31
Statutes at Large	107 Stat. 77
Codification
Titles amended	42 U.S.C.: Public Health and Social Welfare transferred to 52 U.S.C.: Voting and Elections
U.S.C. sections created	42 U.S.C. ch. 20, subch. I-H § 1973gg et seq. transferred to 52 U.S.C. §§ 20501–20511
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 2 by Al Swift (D-WA) on January 5, 1993 Committee consideration by House Administration Passed the House on February 4, 1993 (259–160) Passed the Senate on March 17, 1993 (62–37) Reported by the joint conference committee on April 28, 1993; agreed to by the House on May 5, 1993 (259–164) and by the Senate on May 11, 1993 (62–36) Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) (52 U.S.C. § 20501 - 52 U.S.C. § 20511) (formerly 42 U.S.C. §§ 1973gg–1973gg-10), also known as the Motor Voter Act, is a United States federal law signed into law by President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993, and which came into effect on January 1, 1995. The law was enacted under the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution. The law advances voting rights in the United States by requiring state governments to offer voter registration opportunities to any eligible person who applies for or renews a driver's license or applies for public assistance, requiring states to register applicants that use a federal voter registration form to apply, and prohibiting states from removing registered voters from the voter rolls unless certain criteria are met.

The Act exempts from its requirements states that have continuously since March 11, 1993, not required voter registration for federal elections or have offered Election Day voter registration (EDR) for federal general elections. Six states qualify for exemption from the Act: North Dakota (which does not require registration), Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Maine lost the exemption when it abolished EDR in 2011, though it was subsequently restored.

After Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to address rampant voting discrimination against racial minorities, voting rights advocates argued for federal legislation to remove other barriers to voter registration in the United States. The basic requirements to vote are the same in all states. A person has to be a U.S. citizen, of at least 18 years old and a resident of the state that he or she is voting in. However, initial legislative efforts to create national voter registration standards for federal elections failed. In the early 1970s, Congress considered several legislative proposals to require the U.S. Census Bureau to mail voter registration forms to every household, none of which passed. In the mid and late 1970s, legislative proposals to require certain public agency offices to make voter registration forms available and to require states to allow Election Day voter registration failed. Similar bills introduced throughout the 1980s also failed.

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