Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s Tuesday letter regarding election day voter registration was incorrect. Washington state passed Minnesota in voter participation years ago. In the 2004 general election, 82 percent of our state’s registered voters participated, while Minnesota had 78 percent. In the 2006 general election, Washington’s turnout was 65 percent, while Minnesota’s was 60 percent.
In fact, our state’s turnout is higher than all seven of the states that have election day registration.
That begs the question of why would we want to jeopardize the integrity of our election system by drastically eliminating voter registration cutoffs when we already have better turnout. It doesn’t make sense.
Sam Reed
Washington Secretary of State
Olympia
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