YOUR TURN

Last month, the Big Three Republican leaders — Gov. Jim Edgar, Senate President James "Pate" Philip and House Speaker Lee Daniels — were dealt a crushing blow when a Cook County judge ruled against their "two-tier" voter registration system.

Circuit Judge Francis Barth decreed the two-tier system is unconstitutional because it keeps people who registered in driver's license facilities from voting in state and local races; and that it is illegal because it imposes millions of dollars in new costs on taxpayers, which ironically violates Edgar's own law requiring funding for local mandates. In addition, he found that Secretary of State George Ryan's office was not notifying driver's license applicants that they could register, which the judge ruled was a violation of a 1990 law.

This ruling should have been the death knell to the Big Three's ongoing attempts to defy the "motor voter" law. But not for them — even after losing three lawsuits.

So instead of apologizing to the taxpayers for the $10 million they've already wasted on this fight, they are appealing the decision. This, despite editorials in such influential newspapers as the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and The State Journal-Register condemning them for the two-tier system and for their arrogance in deciding to appeal. And despite the fact that the vast majority of the public agrees with the concept of motor voter (including readers who responded to a recent Illinois Issues poll).

The issue of making voter registration easier for citizens has been around for a while. There was the 1990 Illinois law, which said citizens shall be notified about registering in driver's license facilities. And in 1992, I worked with both Democrats and Republicans to get a motor voter law passed in the General Assembly — only to have it vetoed by Gov. Edgar.

A year later, the federal law was passed by Congress. And in spite of the Big Three's best efforts to squelch that law, the court ruled in 1995 that motor voter must be implemented in Illinois. That's when they concocted their dual registration system. The Land of Lincoln now has the distinction of being the only state besides Mississippi to have this strategem (and we know their history on voting obstacles).

So as it stands now, you can become an organ donor and sign away the rights to your eyes, kidneys and heart while standing in line at the local driver's license facility, but you cannot sign up to vote in all elections. In essence, you are prohibited from picking your representatives in the General Assembly, your county or municipal governments, or voting on local referendums.

As someone who became involved in politics because of my strong belief in the democratic system, I find this to be an outrage.

Our future as a democracy depends on our participation in the political process. That the Big Three would endanger the electoral participation of hundreds of thousands of people is of great concern to me.

Why, you may ask, is motor voter so important to me? Because it is a system that encourages citizens to connect with their government. And it's convenient — it has that one-stop shopping appeal taxpayers have been demanding for some time.

It's no secret that there is widespread voter apathy and cynicism among the public today. And who can blame them? Take just one example: The public overwhelmingly believes improving public education is critical for the future of Illinois. But instead of heeding their constituents, our recent governors and the General Assembly have significantly reduced the state portion of education funding from 38 percent to 32 percent.

How can some elected officials get away with ignoring the "public will"? Because they believe (and there is some truth to this) that their constituents are not paying attention. And because of low voter turnout they are not worried about being voted out of office.

As a critic of ineffective government for many years, I have seen firsthand how money can influence policy decision-making. But not many of us have $100,000 to contribute to our favorite candidates to get their attention. The lobby in many cases for average citizens is a good elected official who cares more for his or her constituents than for special interests. And, trust me, they are out there.

But the only way we'll have more of them in government is if we get people

38 ¦ June 1996 Illinois Issues

to participate and wield their political power through voting.

That's why large voter registration drives are so important.

When I was elected county clerk, I promised to increase voter registration in suburban Cook County. Our office launched one of the most aggressive voter registration campaigns in the county's history. And since 1991, we've registered hundreds of thousands of voters. Our success was due in large part to making it more convenient for people to register — by having grocery registration days and by registering at rock concerts and other big events.

Making it easier for people to register is not "coddling" them, as has been suggested by the Big Three. We are a highly mobile society — some studies show that 25 percent of Americans move every year. This may not matter much in a small town, but it does in urban areas like Chicago, where more than 65 percent of the population are renters who often move when their leases are up.

So instead of having to make an extra trip, why not have them do it at the same time they go into driver's license facilities or other public offices? And why not make it easier for the disabled and the elderly by letting them utilize mail-in registrations?

What we have now is a system that disenfranchises people.

Does the Big Three really believe those 133,000 people who registered in state facilities for the past year only wanted to vote in some elections?

Overwhelmingly, the media have agreed that two-tier is a fiasco. Still, there were a few pundits after the March primary who contended the system worked in an "orderly" fashion.

Do they really believe that the more than 15,000 residents who tried to vote in local elections weren't upset when they could not?

Or that the "orderly" establishment of a "tax" on counties, which had to accommodate the two-tiered primary elections by printing extra ballots, wasn't a terrible burden on taxpayers and election officials throughout the state? Our office, which oversees elections for suburban Cook County, spent about $1 million.

If the two-tiered voting system was less "confusing" than predicted, it was because our clerks around the state mailed notifications alerting thousands of registrants that they needed to reregister for all elections. And because of the tremendous outreach done by the League of Women Voters, the Illinois Federation of Labor, the Urban League, Operation PUSH, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and other community organizations, which used their own money to reregister voters.

The Big Three certainly made no effort to inform or re-register voters.

What they did instead was put election authorities in a paradoxical dilemma: either hope for a high turnout and more angry voters or a low turnout and an "orderly" election.

This is not what American democracy is about. We should not be making it more difficult for citizens to vote, as the Big Three have done.

We should be making certain that as many people as possible can take part in their government.

And that's just what the national motor voter law does.

David Orr is Cook County clerk and is involved in the legal battle to gel motor voter implemented in Illinois.

Illinois Issues June 1996 ¦ 39