may be citizens but have a drivers license. >> do the age filter so there's no barrier that we can't, no challenge we can't work around. we heard a concern him some immigrant rights groups on behalf of legal residents and even some undocumented that well, hopeful for that comprehensive immigration reform coming sooner rather than later, how do we make sure that if somebody is registered inadvertently that they are not punished later or the crimes that they didn't commit? government automatically registers them possibly, we're pretty sure were not going to do that but just in case we will language into the bill, thank you brennan for your guidance on this, that would put the fault on the government side, not on the individual side so that it doesn't create issues later. for them. we also wanted to make sure that we are working with the department of motor vehicles

to provide very clear language on voter eligibility. when we do it on paper now we have to check those boxes under penalty of perjury, yes i'm a citizen and eligible and i'm filling out this form that's true and correct and so that language is going to be glaring for people going through new motor voter just as an extra caution. we are also through automatic voter registration providing serials in the nine languages other than english required in california under the federal voting rights act and we are able to do that because as i describe in a minute were sort of doing it as a counter, a point-of-sale at dmv. look at this in oregon for those of you taking detailed notes. in oregon the way it works is after people come to the dmv to do their business, they are sent a letter after the fact saying we captured your information, you're going to be registered unless you tell us otherwise and by the way, since government can't pick a

political party for you, check box if you like and return this form within 28 days, 30 days. in california we are piggybacking on previously funded technology upgrades at dmv so we will be to ask these questions not in the letter after the fact but as that person is applying for or renewing their drivers license or their state id. it's for the first time at the counter, at the dmv, at the point of sale or during that transaction for people renewing my mail, for people renewing online we are building in the protocol to ask those questions then and there and that frankie was logistical. anyone that for me in california as big diverse day as we are doing that follow-up letter in 10 different languages? we had a communications challenge there and we had a workaround that we think is better and more efficient. and it's also not walk, we

are building a foundation here. we are like get 90 percent maybe of the eligible unregistered, we are not capturing 100 so what efforts can you to capture more folks who are eligible but unregistered will be at the dmv? once we lay down the technology background , being able to expand to other state department and agencies and maybe even local governments as well. for all the people who come in and provide name, address date of birth signature, whether you're signing up for community college classes, whether you're coming in for employment because you're not unemployed, whether you are returning from a tour of duty and signing up for veterans benefits or get this, people previously uninsured coming to sign up for healthcare under the aca. it's a health benefits exchange. you can be conducting voter registration as well. systematic and again,

captured in real time. political party preference, language preference, if they want to be a vote by mail voter, all that stuff is going to make it more effective and more efficient for us to do. so i envision that over the next several years, once we have a new motor voter technology foundation in place and last but not least, some people will criticize new motor voter by saying well, for people who are renewing their drivers license, i may not back to this five years so how efficient is it how quickly are we moving the needle? they have a little bit of a point most people as soon as you move and you are reviewing your checking accounts and all, that's a reminder that you got to renew at dmv and we have this online registration tool like a couple of other dozen states do that isn't just for online first time registration but to update your registration as well. and we also, so taken together i think we are going

to be able to keep up and have them keep up with us as well. last but not least i want to talk about an attitude i came across even from some supporters of automatic registration as we proposed it. it almost took the form of something like this. alex, why are you going through all this effort? just because you register somebody to vote doesn't mean they're going to vote. right? if you haven't heard that already, expected.i disagree. maybe not 100 percent of them will turn out and vote but if nothing else, think about this. if you are eligible to vote in the united states of america not a registered voter today, you do not receive the voter information guide from your state. if you are eligible to vote in the united states but not registered, you don't get the sample ballot fremont county. something about that. just through sheer virtue of systematic registration of

millions of voters in california and throughout the nation, automatically these new registered voters will receive the voter information guide. they will receive a sample ballot. and maybe they will hear from all the candidates or the politicians seekingreelection . they will hear from the smart ones who know somebody's now eligible to vote and i need their vote. so bottom line is, as a new registered voter you get the invitation to the democracy party. that you never got before. you get that invitation to participate and the information that there's an election coming up, the date, then, where and how to vote. and this brings me to my next project that i put brightly in the voting rights category. let's modernize how to conduct elections in recognition of life in the

21st century. we talked about automatic registration.why not go one step further and talk about automatically adding a ballot in the hands of every registered voter each and every election. and we have a tremendous opportunity here to really do this right area as we free up time, energy, resources away from voter registration because of success on automatic registration, we can ship some of that time, energy and resources on voter outreach and voter education and voter turn out. so just as oregon was a big inspiration for us to pursue automatic registration, colorado has been a big inspiration for us on how to conduct elections and make it easier for people to participate. there series of reforms implemented, ours now proposing legislation goes something like this. every registered voter automatic receives about four weeks before election day and they are afforded multiple opportunities for how to submit that ballot. there is still good old-fashioned u.s. postal service .

in colorado, every county installs ballot drop boxes throughout the county and a voter can drop their ballot off at any dropbox convenient to them in the weeks leading up to the election. that goes a step further and sets up curbside ballot drop off stations. think the post office on april 15. you don't even have to get out of your car. there's a friendly face representing the county taking a ballot from you curbside. and if you like my mother still insist on going in person to cast your ballot because you won't have it any other way, they've modernize polling places as we know them to what are known as both centers. i will let them into more detail but basically we afford voters the flexibility and convenience of voting anywhere in the county and not just at one designated location close towhere you live . you have this option in the

weeks leading up to election day, not only that first tuesday after the first monday of november from 7 am to 8 pm if you're in california. so the good news is, this is a good idea, we think and were crossing our fingers. we know california has gone from 12 to third in the nation in turnout. california in 2014 right 40 thirds of clearly we have room for improvement and we know where to go for good ideas. san mateo county south of san francisco piloted this model just last fall and now we have our own metric of whether or not it works. we took the savings from the administration side, investment in education, public service announcements, billboards, social media, mailings for a special election. which normally we take very low turnout. san mateo the highest turnout in 20 years across all demographic groups. that is success. we are sponsoring legislation

to implement that in california, have that be the model in the years ahead and so as i conclude here i want to just bring it all together and say here's what i propose our voting night rights agenda be in the 21st century. yes, we must defend and protect our voting rights and insist that congresssooner rather than later restore section 4 of the voting rights act was compromised by the supreme court . [applause] but i'm not satisfied with just playing defense. i like to play offense. offense is how you put points on the board and we can play offense when it comes to voting rights by automatically registering all eligible voters. we can play offense by automatically sending editorial registrar about and providing more choices for when, where and how to cast ballots and we can play offense by taking the savings through these reforms and investing in voter outreach and education and turnout and i believe this is the agenda

of how we overcome historical barriers to the ballot box and to participation and this is how we instill the tradition of voting for all people and strengthen our democracy and this is how we fight back against the attacks on voting rights that we see in far too many states in our country right now. and while we wait for congress to act, we embrace the opportunity for states to be able to act now . this is our agenda. the department of justice can't do it alone. i know later today we hear from former attorney general eric holder whose leadership as attorney general really we don't civil rights division of the department of justice. he was a tremendous leader for the department. he had a story shield when it came to our voting rights and lead with a steady hand. i can only hope my contribution to democracy in this nation is just a small fraction of what he has done and is continuing to do so thanks you brennan center for

your fights for democracy and justice and thank you for having here this morning. [applause] . >> thank you secretary padilla, that was truly inspiring and energizing. i would like to call up our panelists now for expanding the electrics, the power of automatic voter registration in a changing america. [inaudible conversation] thank you everybody. my name is wendy weiser and i direct the democracy program here at the brennan center among other things. we work to protect voting rights and improve election

administration, both of which we believe are significantly advanced by automatic voter registration. as you know, we in the united states face a real turnout crisis. our last federal election saw the lowest voter turnout in 72 years and even with all the enthusiasm around this year's presidential primary, turnout remains embarrassingly low. according to a recent pew study analysis of the first 12 primaries this year, turnout was around 17 percent for republicans, less than 12 percent for democrats and that's actually considered reasonably high so this is a real problem we need to address. and in some ways, our country is even going further in the wrong direction on voting. we are facing the first presidential election in which team states have new laws in place that will make it harder for eligible citizens to vote.

is the first presidential election in more than half a century without the full protection of the voting rights act and it is the first presidential election in which we are feeling the full force of the supreme court's decision in citizens united. but today, we are here to talk about a major way in which the country is going in the right direction. and the groundswell of momentum around automatic voter registration is not only a real bright spot but really inspiring and we are really delighted to be working with all of you on this important reform. so this panel is going to talk a little bit about what are the benefits. we know from our studies of other recent efforts to modernize voter registration that this reform will say that states millions of dollars. it will make our voter rolls far more accurate, up-to-date and error-free and it will dramatically increase voter registration. but it will also increase participation rates. it will increase turnout among lower propensity voters

and those who have the greatest barriers to participation traditionally. new registrations do not necessarily translate into no voters or does it? these are the questions this panel is going to address. only one state has started implementing automatic voter registration so far and that is for god and we are seeing positive results. he heard that the states the empty voter registration rates have skyrocketed from 12 to 15,000 registrations, and recent data put out by the oregon new motor voter coalition suggests these registrations are also translating greater turnout. as of monday morning, according to their analysis, young people aged 18 to 29 are automatically registered in oregon actually voted at higher rates in the primaries than those who were registered using traditional means.

if you look at the other unaffiliated voters, those who couldn't vote in the presidential primaries and only voted in the nonpartisan local and judicial elections, turnout was 10 percent for those who were registered automatically as compared to only 3.3 percent for those registered using traditional means so in other words, automatic registration really seems tohave an impact on participation according to the early returns . we are lucky today to have three brilliant panelists with the experience and background to help shed light on how and why automatic registration can help voter participation and turnout and we are going to, they're going to address questions from three different perspectives, the perspective of voter mobilization campaign, behavioral science and brain studies and experimental political science and i'm going to start immediately to my left and we are going to go one at a time with jeremy byrd, one of the country's leading strategists on voter

mobilization with extensive experience working to engage and turnout voters.jeremy is the founding partner of 270 strategies and the founding board member of my vote, a new organization that is focused on improving the voting process andpromoting automatic voter registration . in 2012, she was the national field director for president obama's reelection campaign where he ran the campaign turnout efforts. she was also the founding leader of battleground texas which focused on registering and turning out millions of texans to vote so we couldn't be more pleased to have you here. jeremy, joined on your campaign and mobilization experience, i would be grateful if you could talk about how you think automatic registration will impact voter participation. >> thanks for having me. good morning everyone. i want to start by getting people to sort of get into myself or think about the times you volunteered on a campaign or work on a campaign

and so many of those conversations were to folks with the secretary had talked about earlier disproportionately communities of color, disproportionately young people and disproportionately low-income communities where people were art excluded from my list of voters because they weren't registered within the window of their ability to

participate in the process. and you will hear more stats on this but it's a massive massive issue. we know and we will hear from the two other panelists that voter mobilization works. we know that when we go to the door of somebody who is registered to vote who is less likely to vote that by having a conversation with them talking to them on the phone, when they are visible on that list that we can increase their participation rates. we have seen that whether it's from the counties information or the states information or from the campaign or community group going and engaging that person. but our resources can shift fundamentally with automatic registration. going back to 2012 for a second. on obama we called 150 million times to different voters 150 million times to either talk to somebody who was a

persuadable voter or a conversation with a voter that was already registered that they wanted to vote and may also registered 2.1 million voters. to register 2.1 million voters on the obama campaign took 700,000 volunteer shifts, 700,000 volunteer shifts. if those volunteer shifts and by the way this is only in 10 states. there's a whole issue there about the other 40 states that we can talk about later. if we redirected those volunteer resources of those people that did that voter registration we would have been able to knock on or call 35 million additional voters and engage them in the process come and bite them to the democracy party. so simply by campaigns alone to redistribute or resources to people who are already registered and have those conversations about when, where, why and how to vote as opposed to getting them fundamentally

changes the way we run our campaigns and fundamentally changes the way in which we bring people into the process. >> any talk a little bit about what impact do you think these changes might have on engaging minority voters and low income voters? >> when we are talking about voter registration generally the secretary talked about it earlier. we are talking about disproportionately affecting communities of color young people are citizens who could become voters. i think the process by which automatic voter registration works generally changes the composition of the electorate, fundamentally changes the electorate. if you go to any state in the country country and it's pronounced in places like texas and others where there are large populations of latino and african-american voters and young people this will have a bigger impact in those communities and it will change who's on the registration who is on this list that we are talking to from state election

officials, from campaigns and community groups. i think there's another group tactically that this changes. if you're in the campaign and there is an same-day registration or you don't have these laws you will notice the communities that the density of where people live and hide in the density of the list is not so much because there are so many houses that you are walking by where people aren't are registered to vote and that registration window. i think what you will see campaigns will have a much or inability to talk to more folks than people who were on that list and you'll be able to have those conversations and like we have seen in oregon already people that are voting for the first time if we can get them involved in the process and get them to vote a second time all of a sudden you have created voters that created tradition as the secretary was talking about where their kids go to the ballot box and it becomes a cultural change in do we start

at change the narrative which to me is very important in all of this. >> thank you. we are going to turn it over and there will be time for questions i believe at the end of the panel to our next panelist sam wang who was one of the nation's leading experts on the brain and behavioral science. he is a professor of neuroscience and molecular biology at princeton university radius published over 60 science tech articles and two popular books on the brain and he is also widely known for his work on statistical methods for analyzing election polls. sam as you know automatic registration works in significant part by changing the presumptions around voter registration. under the current system and most of the country no one is registered unless they take steps to register to vote and automatic registration flips that. a citizen who goes to the dmz are other agency that is covered

will be registered unless they affirmatively decline voter registration. from the perspective of behavioral science, what does that research on changing default options tell us about the possible impact of automatic utter registration on behavior? >> right, thank you for that question. i am glad you got to that kind introduction. i guess there's a question of why a neuroscientist would be here at all. what i would like to do is give a little information about exactly how one could go about estimating the benefits of automatic voter registration. as we have heard already this morning something like 24% of voting eligible adults in the united states are not registered to vote. that's about 53 million people. i believe you are this morning about 53 million people so the question is how can we understand, to benefit there would need especially given that it's innovative and fairly front edge to be doing automatic voter registration active in four

states so to predict might what happened after lamb principles from other areas from neuroscience or behavioral and cognitive science and i think that they're a couple of principles and i want to give you way to think about this and a little bit different than what we have heard this morning so far. i'll give you to ideas and build up from those ideas and i will try to do it fairly briefly. the first idea is cognitive science and behavioral signs there's something called a tower of default option. the general idea is that human beings as it turns out don't like to think very hard. the terminology and i will throw in some technical terms and these technical terms are mainly and if you are curious you can go to google or google google scholar and looking up this information yourself. the term that's used is cognitive misers. if it's a reasonable option we will choose a difficult option and if it's a reasonable options and that's a powerful point that i think we all do lead went to the play. the second is the power of not

having to plan ahead so generally speaking we think that we can plan ahead but it studies ranging from things like organ donation to saving for retirement, it seems that there are some barriers to making plans far in the to the future to the future we can't necessarily see and we use something called executive function, executive in the domain of behavioral science doesn't mean charge in the company it means executing action so it's the part of your brain the prefrontal cortex. as i think we are to know intuitively opting out as opposed to opting and has several advantages and one of the biggest ones is inertia. if you don't do anything which is much -- what most people specialize in than you are registered in the opt out system and you are not registered to an opt in system. the other point is planning ahead. as i said we are not good at planning ahead for the future.

this plays out in every aspect of our daily life so if this morning when he came in and you had a pastry instead of fruit from a health standpoint you didn't necessarily plan ahead very well. you may not have planned ahead 20 years or 30 years when that fruit verses that pastry might make a difference in your life. one difficulty with executive functioning and planning ahead as we had to be able to match what we are going to do on the first two days of november and that can be as far is two years from now and that's just hard to do that. let me give you a couple of estimates of what removing this barrier would achieve and these are two examples from the literature and if it's okay if i time to do that. the first example of savings plans. his famous study in behavioral science done by -- from 2001 and it has to do with retirement savings. what they showed was participation rates in an opt-in approach led to about 65% participation after 36 months so

65% participation in the retirement program savings program. that sounds pretty good but when the system was switched to automatic enrollment the participation rates jumped to 98%. that's a jump of 65% to 90% of that's because voter registration is about 76% nationwide. another example is organ donation. this is a famous example treated turns out among drivers in europe organ donation registration op den you have to seek out the opportunity to do that in other countries you are done or if you attempt to opt out. an opt in countries the. is 14% an opt out countries the. raid is 94% so now that's a huge jump. in these examples we have an amp on compliance. of 94 to 90% for outcomes that socially are good. what that means just from these two examples the general idea is

getting about 90% is evidently achievable. the case of voter registration starting from 76% going to 94% that difference would get about 40 million people more registered nationwide so that's the goal i think. i would pose that is a relatively realistic goal. now the question, and other question that comes up is whether registering will increase voting and we have heard that question brought up hypothetically by secretary padilla. there's a way to actually look at voting statistics and get indirect information about whether it will increase voting in this gets back to the idea of pre-frontal cortex and executive function for the question is are there people that would like to vote but don't because they failed to register in advance? to give an example before the innovation in west virginia the lot used to be voters need to register 21 days before the election so there's a big -- going on because the percentage

of the voting eligible population that voted with 46% which is well below the national average so we are about to see a big national experiment in what they tell you about something that started going on. the question is this having to plan in advance to vote, is that a barrier? it turns out that 11 states in the district of columbia allow registration on election day itself. you can walk in and fill out a form and register right away and that removes a barrier to planning in advance this pre-frontal cortex executive function. all the states in the district of columbia all 12 have above-average voter turnout. their average voter turnout of 66% of voting eligible adults versus 58.6% nationally and if you plug a difference nationwide that would be about 50 million people more who would vote. of the top states in the united states three have same-day registration minnesota wisconsin and new hampshire and they have 71 to 76% of eligible adults are

able to vote at end up voting on election day in 2012. conversely the bottom for states they required fans registration. secretary brought up another point. the point is will these people actually vote? the benefit of opt out is likely to be greater than so far because data from same-day registration doesn't answer the question of whether more people would be willing to vote if they were art already registered in advance of began receiving mail or this is a research area called implementation attention. if you google that mouthful in google scholar you can look up implementation attention and you can learn about manipulation that demonstrate increase voting and i think we are going to hear more about that perhaps because i know several experts on the stage you know a lot about this. in addition to asking whether you plan to vote i can ask you how you plan to get there like sue is going to take you there

and who you going to go with? when he going to go with it turns out that the people of this planning significantly increases the chances that they will turn out in the config of this as an assist to the prefrontal cortex the idea being we would like to plan ahead but we don't necessarily have the ability to do it by ourselves and maybe we need the equivalent of an exercise buddy to go to the gym. turns out some of these approaches to getting people to vote can be done by mail or other contracts. let me end with the general notes. currently these people are registered. the question is will people vote in the people who are registered currently 77% of those voted in a presidential election. even with automatic registration and estimate would be nationwide close to 30 million people are likely to vote who otherwise would not. i would just close with the nonpartisan note. everything has been nonpartisan but this is something that should appeal to legislators and secretaries of state and all

states. if they're close to 30 million people who would vote who otherwise would not those aren't blue states and red states and those are voters that cross all demographics. if you have a nationwide and we all remember bush versus gore in 2000 surely you would like some of those 30 million people to vote in your state because you would like to not lose ground in other states that are more motivated. i think this is something that should in principle appeal to the competitive list of all states to get those 30 million people to the polls that otherwise would not. >> thank you very much. [applause] before i turn to our last panelist i want to know two things. first, our hashtag agr for all his turned it on twitter, good job, keep it up and also i did want to send apologies. we did have a fourth panelist professor gabriel sanchez of new mexico and latino decisions were

supposed to doing this today and he had a last minute emergencies that he was not able to be here and sends his apologies. i think we have a wonderful panel. now going to turn to our final panelist professor david nickerson who is a professor of political science at temple university. he is a leader in the field of experimental political science and one of our country's leading political science studying voter mobilization including a lung -- among lower propensity voters. he has worked with countless grassroots campaigns including many of you here to release four presidential election cycles and many more congressional races. he is led dozens of field experiments and published dozens of papers on mobilization turnout over the last decade. david can you tell us what does the political science research tell us about the impact on the matter out of registration might have on voter participation and turnout?

>> registration is really hard to study because you have to opt in and once you have a selection effect you are getting the type of person who's interested in voting so if elections are your jam you are probably already registered. we are trying to get people who aren't necessarily registered in a lot of groups go-round with registration cards but a lot of those people have to come up to the bus stop at the grocery store and say guess i will though. simply counting cards does not measure the effect. we need to know what would happen if that group wasn't there doing the hard work to get to these people. rather than rely on statistical models or attribute is conduct randomized field trials. what happened if the dude that are with the padded clipboard wasn't standing there? in one set of experiments which ranged from tampa and detroit in

2004 and the local election of 2007 so a range of elections we were randomly assigned to get camber search of knocking on doors. two streets where they didn't go down and the reason we study streets is there is no list of unregistered voters. it's not like you can go to the secretary of state and they tell me abroad who is not registered to vote and then go mobilize them. you can buy a consumer list and their experiments that i could talk about that streets are really easy to track. they don't move. you can let go of their honesty and how many votes were cast on the street. people in their natural habitat are tricky to get. they close the door of free will. streets can get repaid with no consent. so we take the streets and send people down to mobilize them. what we have found from a look at in the overall attrition rates as those two down they

could increase rates on the treatment streets over the control streets by 10 cards per street which is 200 people and 5% increase in registration so pretty simple. i think it was something like 50,000 hours of work. simple abstract concept there. but relative to the state that's a minor intervention. the worry than would be like people still had to open up the door and sign the card so there's a lot of free will. if you are only given to people with an underlying interest in voter you might not see a difference in turnout rates. you look at who cast the votes and five months later we saw an increase in turnout of 2.5 points. two and a .5 boats which means we are actually increasing voter turnout. there's a pool of people who if you register to vote will

actually go in turnout who would otherwise have stayed at home. this is intervention where we didn't follow up with them and in fact we have a firewall. i flew and organize the drive and put away with all the information. and that means these people who are getting engaged either because people like jeremy bird organized lots of volunteers knock on the door saying hey you are registered to vote, and vote for side and give them an invitation democracy or people who are late deciders, a lot of people don't like football. i don't really like football but end up watching the super bowl. a lot of people don't like voting and i know it's hard for you folks to understand because you are intimately involved in the elections process. people are like i don't like elections too much. there's a lot of excitement and media coverage and some interesting ideas but if there's

an after the registration deadline they can participate. so this experiment showed a lease for some of the people that enter the elections late they can be involved because they are already registered to vote. and there are lots of other experiments we can talk about of other captive audiences but consistently want to make invitation about one third of those people quarter to a third of those people ultimately vote who otherwise would have stayed at home. >> david and a third of people overall that otherwise wouldn't have been registered and get registered turned out to vote, did you see differences for lower income or minority voters or did you see a similar effect? >> yeah, so in experiments in 2006 we tried to get a sample of

streets which range from high income streets in low-income streets in the high income streets we saw a little bit smaller registration rates because a lot of people were already registered. they were just fewer people than once you register them they voted at about the same rate as people around them. the story is different in their birds which were low income, like 15% of the average income in the city. they had a much larger effect and the overall. of turnout was lower in the low income neighborhoods but the number of votes generated was twice as high so if anything there is more value to be gained by doing this and low-income communities than higher income communities. >> you have also talked about some of the downstream effects in participation if a new person enters into the political process and other effects it might have on participation. can you tell us a little bit about those?

>> when we are working with people like jeremy when we do voter mobilization experiments we tell people now view on the list we will randomly assign it to a control group and try to get you out to vote. we knock on your door and make a phonecall and you can see here's the list of the turnout so it helps campaign know what their yield is when they are knocking on doors and things like that. one interesting fact is that we can demo to what happens to the turnout down the road so if we knock on your door the increased turnout by six percentage points what happened to the next election when we haven't talked to you in b.c. one quarter of that jump in turnout is passed onto on to the next election even though there's no intervention on you across the way. once you get people interested in the process that is familiar to them they are more likely to continue down the line. >> in addition to this habit effect with the same people is

there any effect on the people around them as well, household members? >> yeah. so this is actually a fun experiment, fun to me because i'm a geek but we were randomly assigning people to either knock on the door with a cut above message or not with the recycling message. reason why we did that was weekend tell people given you answer the door and you got a recycling message which has no reflect on turnout in no reflection on -- which was harder little disappointment. we did see they had a six-point boost in turnout. what happens to the other person in the household who didn't receive that knock on the door and we found the first experiment shows 60% of that was passed on to another person in the household and subsequent experiments about 30% of that was contained within the household. the person getting involved is likely to pass that around so

this is more an act total than experimental. one of the challenges when we work at registering high rates of immigration is that not many of their neighbors are engaged in the political process. they may not need citizens in the registration low -- registration rate is low if you talk to people about the process where the election is pretty low , outside groups are coming in because there aren't many voters and they are not constantly pulling at a high density. if we were to increase in neighborhoods my guess as you would see a culture politics arise where otherwise it's not as deeply-rooted as neighbors wherever one is registered to vote. >> think you very much for that. we are going to open up this panel to questions and somebody is walking around with a

microphone. i'm going to start with a first question for any of the panelists to want to answer. one of the effects of automatic voter registration is actually to create a much more complete list including a list of people that were previously unregistered voters that doesn't exist today. and that will enable us to learn a lot more about those voters or nonvoters and their behavior. how does that ability to study those voters or to actually have a list of them and contact them affect how campaigns are run and how studies are conducted and how might that in turn affect participation over time and i will start with you jeremy. >> it's all about the list when you're running a campaign. how many people are going to turn out and what is the electorate look like etc.. there is not a good list of unregistered voters and we tried

everything we could in the obama campaign's and even before that to figure out how you file information and look at who's on that list but not on the registration list and see if he can figure out. it does not work very well and it doesn't get to the voters in any real way. in a campaign where you start with a list that's universal it fundamentally changes the goals you set in the campaign. it changes the people you put on your list for every kind of targeting. ads, mail, doors, phone, the way you conduct your tv ad buys which is done smarter now based on specific people you are trying to reach. it would fundamentally change the way in a campaign that is looking to increase participation would go about their work because you start from the list and build better goals in a budget from those targets you are trying to reach. >> david do you have anything to add to that? >> a much more complete picture of what the election looks like

an how they respond is the medical sciences with most of these are or white males. it turns out they are less effective when you have other -- who are women and the same with voters. if you are on the voter registration list and we know how you respond with impulses and how you behave. a pool of nonvoters they are just invisible. we are not able to study how to get gang gauge them in the process. >> maybe we could learn more and get better and engages them as well. for folks have have questions please do raise your hand. the microphone will come to you. there are some people over here and in the back, someone over here. >> i have a comment.

we need on line registration and voting. this way they can eliminate paper which pollutes the trees and kills the trees. >> thank you. is there somebody with a question? i see somebody right over here in the middle, someone in the front. and please introduce yourself. >> i am tonya from new york and i think you have convinced us that automatic voter registration is a good idea. i wonder if the panel would address the problem with the implementation of getting this through in places like new york state, texas, florida and pennsylvania. >> well, thank you. i will take that. part of what this conference is here to address and help achieve

we actually see a lot of bills being pushed across the country and in 28 states this year there were legislative efforts. some of them are getting very far. new york state does have a number of bills pending for example of an active coalition pushing back right now. that is what we are here for today over the coming hours and especially in the afternoon, here to try and help make that happen. >> i have been doing a lot of work and their two approaches, really three. i do think the researches important and what we are seeing out of organ is incredibly important to show the key to success. then there's a legislative strategy -- strategy and in states where you have legislators where they have secretary of state that you can

pass this through its using folks like the brenton send -- brennan center and oregon and in other places and saying here's legislation that works let's implemented in a legislative process. secondly they are not going to do that in the legislative process. 10 of them have the mena processes where you go to the voters. if you vote in nevada this year you will see it in other places like ohio. we have have to take two people are a nonpartisan amendment process to say this is a good idea but it's actually enacted whether it's a constitutional amendment and then third it's education and research to show that it works and contained what public pressure out there to make this happen. i think organizing as well as general education. >> i think we can expect somewhat of a snowball effect as it starts happening across the

country and being implemented successfully. that is in part the story of california mammy king oregon and in some other earlier reforms to modernize the registration process such as making it like tronic and government agencies adopting on line registration. start with a few states and their successes have now led this massive or form nationwide in most states now. i think the success will also breed additional success. >> maybe if i could broaden the question just a little bit to talk about the cognitive aspects of the point at one of the states you mentioned, texas has the fourth lowest. rate of a united states. fewer in then 50% of people are eligible to vote and voted in 2012. the bottom four states the rule is that people have to be

advanced to be registered between 21 and 30 days in advance. take that long to register and that contrast with what i said before which is the top four states turn out three of them allow advance registration and why the most ten-day advance registration. it high-minded talking about how great it isn't hypocrisy to have people register to vote but from a cognitive science tampore might be good to appeal to people's fear and competition so if you are competitors days are getting out of millions of people who vote and when it comes time for the national popular vote maybe you would like to have some of your guys voting so i think broadly speaking i would not underestimate the power of competition. >> there are a lot of questioners. >> thank you so much for this very exciting presentation. i was curious to know from the

cognitive point of view and the latest political science analysis how do we deal with alienation, the fact the one to get to the point where people automatic way are registered and i know many of us in here, i know myself have had decades of experience doing grassroots political organizing, how do you get beyond the fact that why vote for the bombs to start with? what do we know about current research that handles that particular problem of getting voters motivated to vote to start with? >> well i'm just going to point out that some of the problems you are talking about, the problem you're attacking about is not limited to voting in a that democracy. there's a decreasing distrust and institutions and that includes not only the legislators who represent us but also medical professionals, every domain. exception if i were called correctly as the military but generally leaders are increasingly distrusted.

the advantage of an opt out is that it automatically engages people and it's hard to say how that's going to engage people in terms of alienation but it seems like it would be better from a policy point of view to get people at least to a point where they could conceivably take one step towards being with alienated voting rather than multiple steps of the difficulty is not to address the decreasing , not to decrease alienation but it feels like a pretty large problem. but to take out one barrier between that person and that might be alienated and get them to vote. >> if our electorate is more diverse or elected officials will be as well and that comes in all the forms are then talking about where on election day the distinction between income in terms of who turns out if you want to solve economic inequality issues in the country let's start by voters on

election day. our elected officials will be younger more diverse and representative of the population if more people are participating so in some ways i think in terms of fundamentally changing who is elected to represent as part of that is changing who is voting. >> there are some more questioners over here. there is one in the front as well. >> hi susan from common cause new york. dr. wang i'm interested in the interaction between habit-forming and novelty when we are talking about automatic voter registration. if such an exciting idea to have the opt out and have the burden on individuals. to what extent can we expect there would be a top up when it's a new idea and how do we

move people to becoming habitual voters and what kind of maintenance do we need from a cognitive point of view so it isn't just this thing is coming in the mail every four years and yeah i'm automatically registered but actually helps them become habitual voters? >> susan thank you for that question. we always put it as this. when we think about our conscious act as being this abstract event, have a choice and i'm going to make that choice but as you rightly point out any action we take is not this isolated single decision but it is as you said the formation of a habit. to give you an example in my own life i habitually vote. i don't even think about it. election day i said that there go vote and i guess i can do it between 5:30 and 7:30 because that's after daycare closes and before the polls close. they make those plans because of

the habit-forming. we don't have to go to mental effort to brush her teeth every morning or to pick things that don't let garris when we go out the front door to many people don't have that problem so the difficulty is in habit formation generally speaking think about the way the brain makes decisions. not one decision manning so just to totally draw on a different domain better eating habits are better exercise habits do not rise from a conscious decision where you apply your world power to do that but the way they work as you form a habit by doing something day after day and after while you are not thinking about that. but that suggests is the possibility the benefit might not comment in one election and it might take several elections pretty to think about the frequency of election cycles of primaries in off year elections it's possible it would take a full election cycle of four years to see the full effect. i would say one could expect an

immediate bump up followed by a gradual ramping up as people build those habits and it's important to think about that when establishing metrics when these have succeeded. the key is your brain doesn't have one decision-making centered has a bunch of them if you take out this barrier becomes easier to build up that habit. >> on that point row quickly you are actually right about the novelty effect. the first time you make an intervention -- intervention we see it's far more effective down the road. the third or fourth time you use it no longer quite an incentive so when you see the results out of intervention it's often they get the starter trails off. when oregon moved to vote by mail, oh my.this is amazing because people registered. they had received a ballot by mail before and afterwards it came down to a slightly lower level than that. you are right that you can't

judge it based him a first one. you have to look at longer-term with the equilibrium would be. >> good morning. my name is don adams. my question part of it is a comment but the rest of it is a question. one of the things that you said it's nice that streets don't move very to my concern is the concept of redistricting where people voluntarily move by the will of a political faction to put two more damage damaged the voting situation or how it i'd be affected. can you give me perhaps an idea of what we are doing right now and i say we because we are all involved here. i would like to know what your

idea is or may be some of your suggestions as far as battling that aspect. >> your concern is if i am a different representative i will be disconnected and not feel as close to the lack drove russ is because my intent has change? >> i've seen it happen for glenn. >> it's a little bit outside my expertise. i might defer to someone else. >> i think you touch on a really important issue and a lot of the gerrymandering problems are things that do alienate people and have a negative impact on participation. automatic voter registration, while it has a significant effect, does not address that problem. there is a lot of momentum around performing redistricting around the country, addressing concerns both in partisan gerrymandering but also

community representation for all communities of color. there are movements in the courts as well and that's another important issue 10-gauge in as well. >> thank you. and not from maryland state delegate. you touch on something i've been fascinated about and that is a citizen who does not register, the citizen who isn't motivated, who doesn't take that first step , and i wonder how much of it is our own emphasis as we run elections on the super voter and all of our attention to reaching out. i'd love the idea of going up and down the street to my question is, do we know any more about what is behind that person

that hasn't register to vote or when they are registered to vote doesn't go. are we studying that level of motivation? >> there is some work on that and this goes back to the question of alienation where some people don't register to participate in part because they are young. they haven't had the process where once you have been established in neighborhood chances are other people will dry into the system. the process, like a lifecycle process. as we get older we simulate many of the habits and behaviors of people who vote. there's another set of people for whom voting does not speak to them. it's not part of their core identity and the reason for that , one of the fun things about voters is no matter what theory you have about a voter that person exists. it's a question of what

proportion of the lack that they are. again this is more anecdote like i did an experiment and i can tell you how people think but when i had done doorknocking in very poor neighborhoods one of the questions you often get is why should i care? no matter who gets elected the status of my neighborhood doesn't really change. the groups that i have worked with can point to small victories and say because we have this counsel collected the lights got fixed or the playground got cleaned up but as a group we have petitioned the police department and we changed how they police are kennedy. those types of things can show positive progress but it's hard because ultimately people are stubborn. they don't want to vote.

you can't force them to. this is not say australia where mandatory voting is fine if you don't vote. so trying to point to things that they personally care about and i have found progress on three collective process and may not be voting per se. if you're expecting barack obama to fix your neighborhood's problems, there's something about the usb or chrissy you are not understanding. but there are lower levels of government where you can make a difference and that is where i would start on that. >> i would have a think its incredibly complex as complex as the people we are talking about. it's not a homogeneous reason but i think it's related to some of the other questions that have announced. when you ask people, one reason is some people don't feel like it matters in part a recent appeal that matters is redistricting in elections where

they don't think it matters and in some ways it doesn't because they been redistricted into certain districts that are not competitive. they also don't feel like they are getting spoken to and they are not invited and called into the process the part of the reason is they are not on the list. there are other barriers created by our laws. one of the other things is the narrative. if everyone of you have gotten an e-mail or whatever paper you. the in the paper the headline was the brennan center conference today will have low participation will not be well attended to know young people and no people of color will be there. basically if you had to register and all that. the narrative we have created is is -- so why would i go to the party? it is cultural and narrative and

you have to fix that problem. >> i have to interject that i know we want to talk about things like alienation in the gauge meant in policy but i want to point of to point out the people in this room even though automatic voter registration has that certain saintly technical sound to be totally frank about what we are tried to accomplish and what people are trying to accomplish here, can potentially have a much larger effect than getting people in and grabbing them pretty good effect is we have heard from professor nickerson that a few percentage points but if you look at the people who have to register 20 to 30 days in advance, 40% of them both. you look at those who register the same day, 72%. one could suppose the hypothesis that people in minnesota wisconsin new hampshire and iowa are less alienated the people in west virginia oklahoma and texas but that's a 24 percentage point difference. potentially by doing what you are here to do today back up in effect that is 10 times as large

the syringes thing affects of shoe lover going -- shoe leather going door-to-door. it feels like a good thing to do. >> we have time for one or two more questions before turning it over. >> in california and in oregon how are they reaching people who don't have driver's licenses? >> that is a great question. automatic voter registration at the dmv does reach only people with driver's licenses so that method of registration, there are still registration avenues available outside of the dmv but as you heard secretary padilla said there's no reason this needs to be limited to dmv.

a lot of states are actually considering much broader sweeps of their automatic voter registration to include the public service agency, disability agency the whole wide range of government agencies. there's no reason they couldn't be included in the process and we have seen in states that have actually adopted technology to make voter. distraction process more electronic and streamlined in government agencies many have started expanding first from the darfur's license into other government agencies. i think ultimately a system of universal voter registration automatic registration should cover as wide a swath, agencies and citizens interact with as possible. one more. >> good morning. i guess it's afternoon now.

i'm with the naacp new york state and i think i have to commend you for this great conference, but there's so much fear that's put into my committee when it comes to voting, i just don't know where we are going to, how we are going to make the changes. i know what you are doing is wonderful. you are our partners but we need help. we have been so disenfranchised through the redistricting as the gentleman for brooklyn said. we just don't trust anyone. so i might suggest that we take this show on the road because we are all insiders. the people that want to bring to the polls, they are the ones that need to hear what you are saying. i believe that we should train

the trainers so that we can bring brennan center's message everywhere. i live in a county that is the most segregated county, nassau county and we are feeling it so much at the polls. so we need help, not just in nassau, in brooklyn the voting was terrible april 19. so i don't know how we change the mindset to get people to the polls except to take this show on the road. thank you. >> thank you so much. i think that's a wonderful note to end this panel on. everyone here today can help take the show on the road. i want to thank our terrific panel is for this really lively

and informative presentation. we are going to have a short break before the honorable eric holder addresses us and please don't leave and thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> okay everyone we are going to get started so if you will take your seats. the next part of our program is going to begin. so why have the honor of introducing my former boss and good friend attorney general eric holder who we are so delighted is with us today. i'm going to start though by bringing greetings from someone who is quite interested in the topic. he writes to the brennan center great greetings to all those participating in a conversation on automatic out of registration previous success of the american experiment in self-government relies on engaging all of our citizens in the work of building a better politics through this includes ensuring every person can exercise their right to vote

no matter who they cast their ballot for paid when we vote our government is more effective of who we are as a people and our nation is better off. that is why i join you in supporting steps such as automatic voter registration for those applying to get a driver's license. actions like this and make it not only easier for people like us to get their voices heard that they also modernize their voting system in a 21st century helping build a more fair and inclusive democracy for all. as you come together to enable more of our citizens to fulfill our most vital civic responsibility i wish you all the best, barack obama. [applause] so the key is to speak after barack obama in writing and before attorney general holder in person. so it is humbling to introduce one of the great attorney general's in our history and it's tempting to do so by

rattling off all of his accomplishments come to the hundreds of terrorism convictions in the record financial fraud cases, standing up for lgbt of polity and restoring what he calls the conscious of the department, the civil rights division to his rightful place in the department but i was excited to do this today because it gives -- gives me an opportunity to talk about a part of the attorneys general that he doesn't get enough credit for that is his peers devotion to protecting the franchise. my last full year in the obama administration, and i say it like that to remind the attorney general that i ended up leaving before he did, the supreme court issued its decision in shelby county gutting section 5, one of the core protections the heart of the voting rights act. now the attorney general

protected voting rights through its stewardship of the department long before that decision whether ensuring motor voter laws worth properly administered and enforced to standing up for military voters overseas or language minorities at home but in one of the darkest hours for the right to vote in the last half-century which is the aftermath of that decision i saw how determined the attorney general was to make one thing very clear to the american people and that is that we were not going back. how did he do this? would it be to? within minutes of the decision to issue the attorney general was pretty much in every television network making very clear his intention to shift resources to one of the most important remaining provisions of the voting rights act, section 2 and his commitment to fully utilize other parts of outlaw the los noches the monitoring and observation provision. it didn't take long for him to prove that he meant it that this

was more than just a policy statement brother filing section 2 challenges to some of the most restrictive voter i.d. laws we have seen in quite some time in texas texas or in our the carolinas to directing the department drawing cutbacks early voting. for the attorney general protecting the right to vote was never simply a backward looking exercise or one that really should center around preserving some of the crown jewels in our civil rights laws like the vra. he understood that our system of voting really needed a 21st century update, that in a country like ours that invented the iphone in facebook we couldn't justify the five hour long lines for people to voter people not being able to vote because they missed the registration deadline or were confused after a move. he understood that politicians shouldn't be picking voters, that it should be the other way

around and just because poll taxes are outlawed it doesn't mean state legislatures and officials can't come up with new ways to restrict the franchise. so on almost every single occasion that i heard the attorney general speak about voting rights act, whether in congress or in forums like this one he called for a modern update to her system and it really rested on three pillars for him. and being deceptive practices, redistricting reform and as relevant today automatic voter registration. so i'm not going to appreciate his branch of remarks but one thing i always appreciated about his call in this area was his ability to both counter ability to use modern technology and data analytics to reform our system while pushing back on the common excuse to do nothing which is the specter of voter fraud area. ..

[applause] [applause] >> thank you. thank you. [applause] i have to say, it is a pleasure to be here, and i was a little worried when i heard the danielle was introducing me. we go a long way back. thatthat introduction could have gone any number of ways. thank you so much for those kind words. today i would like to discuss with you an issue that i believe threatens the integrity of this great nation and puts in peril the future welfare of our country.

i would also like to suggest the ways in which we might make real our democracy. 50 years after the passage of perhaps the most significant civil rights legislation in our nations history the voting rights act of 1965, the most basic of american rights, the right to vote is under siege. president johnson said when he signed the voting rights act, the right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. at a timea time when we should be expanding opportunities to cast a ballot there is a movement in america that attempts to make it more difficult. abetted by a wrongly decided , factually inaccurate and disconnected supreme court decision that unfortunately bears no name which really this is me off. so whenever you are talking about that case, don't ever

say shelby county versus holden. make like it does not exist. if we have to deal with that. i hope when he is confirmed he will have some kind of precedent be set and go back and change the name. it is one of my requirements for his confirmation. but, abetted by that decision i think too many in this country are trying too hard to make it too difficult for the people to express there views. let me start with the basic statement that i think everyone can agree, every person attempting to vote should have to show that he or she is who they claim to be. too many today forget that this is always been the case and that in the past our fellow citizens were allowed to demonstrate that in many credible ways. it has always been part of

identifying yourself before you could cast a ballot. it is only recently in some states they have become overly prescriptive and unfairly restrictive and enumerating what is sufficient proof. it is only been in the very recent past and with certain states and legislatures and governors, this more restrictive prescribed approaches been mandated. the usual justification. given the nature of the fraud that is to be eliminated in new restrictions must i assume be designed to provide an person false identification voting. although there is no proof that there is an issue about which the nation should be concerned, it is so awful, almost robotically some

people have unthinkingly begun to believe that the issue is real. studies have shown this is extremely, extremely rare which is logical. the penalty associated with voter fraud far outweighs the impact that an individual or a group of people might affect. to truly impacted election would require substantial numbers of people somehow voting themselves out as voters that they are, in, in fact, are not which would increase almost exponentially. no such widespread schemes have been detected. more likely that an individual would be struck by lightning than to impersonate another person at the polls.polls. i think we should have used a powerball and analogy there, but struck by lightning gives you a sense

of how rare this is. one expert found as we try to look at all of the cases, 31 cases out of more than 1 billion votes cast in the us from 2,000 to 2014. thirty-one out of 1 billion. people of good faith, people grounded in the facts, where is the problem? i have to conclude there simply is not a consequential one serious negative collateral consequences are in fact not needed. instead of ensuring the integrity of the voting process they actually do the opposite by keeping certain groups of people away from the polls. there is not a fact-based voter impersonation problem, what thenproblem, what then can be the basis for the photo identification push? sadly, one party has decided

to latch itself to short-term political expediency than put itself on the wrong side of history. history will be harsh in its assessment of this effort. in the 2,007 article the houston chronicle, among republicans that is not at all of religious faith the voter fraud is causing us to lose elections. the article goes on to say, he does not agree with that but does believe requiring photo id to cause enough of a drop-off in legitimate democratic voting that 3 percent to republican votes. in pennsylvania the last presidential election, 2012, the republican state house majority leader looked at a few partisan issues that would help mid- romney carry the state, guns and abortion he said, voter id which will allow the governor to win the state of pennsylvania done. a federal court in

washington dc throwing out a texas republican supported voter identification law stating that it would impose strict unforgiving burdens on the poor. and remember, under that texas state law university id was found not to be adequate proof but a state issued concealed weapons permit was. finally, in wisconsin last year resigned after attending a party caucus in which he said some legislators were literally giddy over the affect of state voter id laws on minorities in college students. so let's be frank. face with demographic changes they perceive go against them and settled with a governing philosophy at all with nation some republicans have decided if you cannot beat them, change the rules. make it more difficult for

those individuals least likely to support republican candidates to vote. this is done with the knowledge that by simply depressing the voter groups, not even winning a majority of votes, elections, elections can, in fact, be affected. a 2014 study found that the more restrictive voter id laws decreased votes of young people,people, minorities, and the poor in kansas and tennessee in 2012 a recent study conducted by the university of california in san diego after controlling for variety of factors concluded these new laws disproportionately affected democratic voters funding the democratic turnout dropped about 7 percent where strict photo id laws were in place. latino turnout decreased 10%, and there10 percent, and there was an increase in the participation gap between whites and people of color.

if one were to try to define what voter fraud is, that is voter fraud. now, the nation's attention and laws should not be focused on the expansion for legal voters. the census bureau reported of the 75 million adult citizens who did not vote 60 million were not registered and therefore not eligible to cast a ballot. this is one of the places where we should focus our efforts. the speech i gave in 2011, i called for the automatic registration of all eligible citizens, and the logic for the argument is still sound. the ability to vote is a right, not a privilege. under our current system, many voters must follow industry complex and cumbersome voter registration rolls. before and after every election season state and local officials have to manually process the crush

of new applications, most handwritten leaving the system riddled with errors and too often creating chaos at the polls. one in eight voter registrations in the us is invalid or significantly inaccurate. modern technology provides a straightforward fix for these problems if we have the political will to bring our election systems into the 21st century. government can and should automatically register citizens to vote by compiling from existing databases list of all eligible residents, and several states have taken steps in that direction. oregon implemented an automatic registration procedure and is already seen a nearly fourfold increase in registrants.

california, vermont, and west virginia have passed similar laws, and other states are leaning in that direction. it is estimated that if implemented at dmv's and other key government agencies, not just dmv's, these needed reforms would at 50 million eligible voters to the roles, save money and increase accuracy in the record necessary to the system. we must also address the fact that although one in nine americans lose every year the voter registration does not lose with them. many would be, although they don't realize this which can follow full month or more before election day. election officials i believe should work together to establish a program on a permanent portable registration so the voters can vote at the new polling place on election day. until that happens i think we we should implement failsafe

procedures to correct voter roll errors and emissions by allowing every voter to cast a regular, non- provisional ballot on election day. now, several states have taken the step shown to increase turnout by at least three to five percentage points. these modernization efforts were not only improve the integrity of elections the save precious taxpayer dollars. now, despite benefits there will always be those who say that easing registration hurdles and election dayday processes will only lead to voter fraud. well, let me be clear. voter fraud is not acceptable. they should not be tolerated. as i learned early in my career as a prosecutor with the justice department public integrity section are actually investigated and prosecuted real voting fraud cases making voter registration and voting easier i simply noti simply not likely by themselves to make our

elections more susceptible to fraud. indeed, those are all sides of this debate that have essentially acknowledged in person voting fraud is uncommon. they have to be honest about this and must recognize our ability to ensure the strength and integrity of our election systems and to advance the reforms necessary to achieve this depends on whether the american people are informed,informed, engaged, and willing to demand fact-based contentions and commonsense solutions and regulations that make voting more accessible. politicians may not readily and willingly even though 80 pes opposed the citizens united decision and two thirds support strengthening voter protection and the restoring

of the voting rights act. only we the people can bring about a meaningful change and alter current discriminatory trends. i want to commend the brennan center for its leadership on these issues. the center 1st proposed automatic voter registration and 2007 and has not done much since then to advance the policy and other voting enhancements through extensive research and public education. so speak out to raise awareness about what is at stake, called the political party most responsible to resistant tatian to suppress certain votes in the hope of retaining electoral success and work to achieve this success by appealing to more voters. what do they fear? the very people who they claim they want to represent and urge policy like -- policymakers at every level to reevaluate our systems and reform them in a way that encourage, not limit participation, insist that make it easier to register and vote. when asked why is voting

tied to a single tuesday in november increase not decrease the number of polling places where fellow citizens can truly participate in democracy. we cannot and must not take the right to vote for granted, nor can we shirk responsibility that falls upon our shoulders. the promise of the 1965 voting rights act israel and america was the 1st nation in the history of the world to be found it with a purpose to write wrong and do justice. over the last two centuries the fulfillment of this purpose has taken many forms

, protest and compassion, declarations compassion, declarations of war and peace command a range of efforts to make certain that government of and by and for the people shall not perish from the earth. today there are competing visions about how our government should move forward. we are noisy nation. that is with the democratic process is about, space bar thoughtful debate, opportunities for citizens to voice opinions and ultimately letting the people chart their own course. our nation has worked and fought to help people around the world establish such a process. hear at home honoring our democracy demands to remove any and all barriers to voting, goal that all american citizens of all political backgrounds must share. despite so many decades of struggle, sacrifice, and achievement must remain ever vigilant in safeguarding our most basic and important right.

too many recent actions i believe are simply shameful. the potential to reverse the progress that defines us and has made this nation exceptional as well as an example for all the world. we must be true to the arc of america's history which compels us to be more inclusive with regard to the franchise. we must get the purpose that more than two centuries ago inspired our nation's founding and now must guide us forward. so let us act with optimism and without delay, rise to the challenges and overcome the division and the fallacies of our time, signal to the world that an american state, a more perfect union lives on. now is not the time to retreat from the most basic of american rights the battle to ensure the voting rights of all americans is a defining one. this is not only a legal issue but a morala moral

imperative. if we are to be the nation we claim to be comeau we must challenge in every way possible those who would undermine democracy, and to have lost faith for the covenant between government and the people. the right to vote is not only the cornerstone of our system of government but the lifeblood of our democracy. i am confident that with a focused citizenry and leaders like those we have today the struggle will be one. if we are to remain true to those who sacrifice and died to ensure the right to vote, we must simply not fail. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> tonight on book tv in prime time,, biographies

about the founding fathers. the the and at 8:00 p.m. eastern. ♪ >> c-span washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you, and coming up friday morning president of the federation for american immigration reform will be on to discuss us immigration policies and their impact on the economy and national security, and attorney for september 11 families will talk about their efforts to get congress to approve the justice for sponsors against terrorism act. they lose their right to sovereign immunity a protection froma protection from lawsuits. the senate recently approved the measure and now hits the house. and acting chief for u.s.

customs and border protection will discuss the role of us border patrol and stopping illegal immigration. be sure to watch beginning live at 7:00 o'clock eastern friday morning. join the discussion. >> coming up next, remarks from founder and editor, devoted to federal appellate litigation. he spoke earlier this year about academic freedom on university campuses. [applause] >> thank you, curtis. i am a professor here, and i am here to introduce howard bashman. the nationally known appellate lawyer who is based in philadelphia and mainly practices before the third circuit.

in 20032,003 american lawyer media named him one of pennsylvania's top 40 lawyers under age 40 on the strength of his appellate litigation practice. now, the senior judge of the third circuit has a book called winning on appeal where there are many judges and a handful of appellate lawyers they give their advice about how to write the best possible appellate brief and when you're appellate case, and howard is one of the few who is honored to participate in that book. he went to college at columbia but more important for us he is a 1989 graduate of emory law school and was managing editor of emory law journal get the emory university merit scholarship. he clerked scholarship. he clerked for two years for judge william hutchinson on the third circuit.

another thing that is important is, he is the founder of the blog "how appealing", all about the business of the federal appeals courts of this country, and i remember in 2002, i am one of the bloggers which started up on april 10, 2,002, the very beginning of the public policy and legal affairs blogs, a popular blog instapundit had just been up and running for several months. it was started in august of 2001. april 10 2002, may 62002 with an opening sentence that went something like, hello, and welcome to the 1st day of the nations 1st appellate blog. and how appealing -- "how appealing" has always been one of the best places to go to get news on what is going

on in the appellate court and find out the most exciting appellate cases that have been coming down and similar things. ever since 2002 howard has been useful to me and my career, and we have known each other since. now howard bashman will talk to us about free speech on university campuses. [applause] >> thank you for that generous introduction. for the record, it was among other things thanks to a link to my blog in its early existence. a readership that includes some us supreme court justices who are willing to admit to it.

just an awe-inspiring thing to have someone say. thanks to the emory university school of law and its federalist society student chapter for allowing me to be here to deliver these remarks. i have been fortunate to deliver remarks to a range of justice federalist society's, student chapters from the harvard law school chapter to the thomas m cooley chapter and many more in between. but it is a special honor to come home to my alma mater. i was hoping for warmer weather, but i am happy to be here anyway. turning to the topic of my remarks today, let me begin with good news and bad news regardless of where you stand on the issue of free speech on campus and student speech codes. in 2016 this year for the

1st time ever since the organization which stands for foundation for individual rights in education, an organization headquartered. the number of organizations that have received the most negative anti- free-speech rating has dipped below 50 percent to 49 .3. that marks to the present time eight years during which the number of colleges and universities that have been rated has continued to decrease. emory remains part of the 49.3 percent. now, if you oppose those restrictions on free speech

before you feel too happy about the facts, you should keep in mind that there are other statistics that give rise to a reason for great concern. last october in organization and yell report on the result of a survey of college students which found that 51 percent of college students favored campus free speech, and 72 percent favored bringing disciplinary action against students or faculty members who use offensive language. similarly, in november of last year the pew research center and other highly regarded polling organizations reported that 40 percent of people in the millennial age group from 18 to 34 believe that government should be able to punish offensive speech.

that was thethat was the largest percentage of any of the generational groups surveyed. now, of course, in recent months campus protest the news coverage have placed these issues very much in the spotlight of public attention. however we got to this place? instead of clamoring for a robust and open exchange of ideas and unfettered free speech students are instead calling for safe spaces and trigger warnings and demanding that so-called cultural appropriation be avoided. some universities, including a number of public institutions have created so-called free-speech zones, which happened to be conveniently located very far away from her anywhere -- anyone else ever happens to be so that ordinary

students who might be offended or have their feelings hurt by the free expression of their fellow students do not have to hear or see what is going on. now, i appreciate as much as anyone the need to be considerate of one's fellow human beings and more to the point fellow students. and it is also important in educational institution to act -- have an atmosphere where people can learn. an atmosphere conducive to learning is, of course, important. at the same time, however, same time, however, the central part of the liberal parts experience, may be the central part is being exposed to new and perhaps even unpleasant ideas and broadening one's understanding of others as a result. prohibiting the discussion of those ideas does not

cause this unpleasant ideas to cease to exist. instead, they are pushed beneath the surface or perhaps they will bubble backup and even more unpleasant ways than if they are the subject of discussion. again, how do we get to where we are today in the current state of campus free speech and student speech. in the view of many part of it is due to the fact that children today are indoctrinated in this culture of political correctness before they even arrive at college.college. there is what is known as the bubble wrap generation. you bubble wrap something because you do not want to get hurt. helicopter parents who fly and to protect their children from any possible offense that could arise. and that insulates children from the otherwise rough-and-tumble world of controversy will ideas that exist in real society. moreover, instead of college

is being run by faculty members, as they have been since long ago we have the atmosphere where most colleges are run by what is called a bureaucratic class, which happens to be administrators with less understanding and appreciation for the value of free speech. not surprisingly, lawyers are partial. i regret to say that today. there is what is known as the risk management movement which has arisen and earns money for itself by giving advice to the university administrators about how to avoid lawsuits, and the concern is that your lawsuits would be brought by students in the absence of these free speech codes if free-speech was freely allowed and are being brought as a consequence of having free-speech restrictions. now, aside from young people

not appreciatingappreciate the value of the first amendment rights as much is earlier, there has been a notable political shift in society. on the one side you have perhaps conservatives and libertarians, and then very extreme left consisting of the american civil liberties union, which continues to speak out for unfettered college free-speech rights. ..

according to professor postman or today's college students are to him a chair. free speech can still occur off-campus and in a bit as opposed their family trademark broad economic analysis students can take into account an institution with free speech availability in deciding where to go to college if that's important to that student. now as the father of a 20-year-old son myself, i think are faster posner overstates the problem. he he also i believe does not have a current grasp on how competitive today's college admissions process is. in my experience, evaluating his school's free-speech rating and free-speech policies tends to be

very low on the list of things people consider in deciding where they wish to go to school. and one of professor posner's other suggestions is that you can go to a state university or public college as opposed to a private college if free speech really matters to you but that doesn't seem to necessarily be the answer because if you look at the prior organization statistics public institutions aren't much better at recognizing free-speech rights that are private institutions. it's interesting to note that over 150 years ago british political philosopher john stuart mill in his statement titled on liberty offered for reasons why one should favor robust free-speech rights and those for reasons resonate as much to me today as i hope they resonate to people at the time the essay was written.

the first reason is that an opinion compels silence could in fact be true and to deny that fact assumes our own infallibility which should not be assumed. secondly and mills point of view even an erroneous viewpoint could contain a portion of the truth just as a prevailing opinion is rarely or never entirely true itself. the third and fourth reasons are also very important. the third reason is that if an opinion is not challenged and does not need to be defended then people will hold those opinions without appreciating the reasons why they are viewed to be true. and fourth, he was concerned that unchallenged opinions could ultimately turn into what he described as dogma, meaning that

they would be at risk of perhaps being devalued or discarded themselves because people didn't appreciate why they ever existed in the first place. although male originally published his on liberty is a 1959 that essay still has much to teach us today. with regard to offense a foreign popular speech the university of all places can and should provide the atmosphere where the reactions of such speech is not to punish the speaker but rather to respond with speech to the opposite effect and to allow the speaker and listeners to hear and understand the competing viewpoints so that they can decide for themselves what is true and what should be believed. before turning to the future it is necessary to say just one more thing about how we got to where we are today.

the aclu and some of its on line materials offers a question and answer in which its defense of campus free-speech rights challenge the questions in the answer the aclu supplies and what the aclu filed was worthwhile to point out was that this free-speech rights that were enjoyed by the civil rights protesters in the 1950s and the antiwar protesters in the 1960s were earned defending the unpopular free-speech rights of organizations in prior decades. my point is that prevailing political sentiments that exist today can and will change over time. as we know there's a presidential election coming up and that could have great change in the popular view of what free-speech rights should be available.

less college students can begin to appreciate the value of robust free-speech rights they and society at large are at risk of a day in the not too distant future where a government could succeed in taking away the rights without anyone complaining or even noticing. that is why i hope that over time young people can begin again to value their free-speech rights and recognize the cost is being defended from time to time by the expression of others. it's a small price to pay for the rights of liberty and freedom that have produced the society in which we live today. thank you. [applause] >> thanks howard. i just have a couple of comments.

i'm not in fundamental disagreement with anything you said, just one data point which you and i are both interested in as alumni or professors at emory law school is i have been here for now seven years and i'm glad to say that at least in the law school and the law school at emory like many schools were fairly insulated and we don't often go cross the street but at least at the law school i have always felt that free speech and open expression rights have been very robust. admittedly i don't have my finger in any -- everything that goes on but being involved with the federalist society that is one candidate where someone wanted to shut anybody down the federalist society would have been a good candidate. don't think anyone has ever tried to and in fact here's one incident that happened a few

years ago. there is an organization that used to be called the alliance defense fund announced called the alliance defending freedom. they are socially conservative organization they have done a lot of things and one thing that they have done is they have taken a strong position against marriage and in addition but totally separate they also do litigation on religious freedom issues. we have a person, from adf and they talked about their religious freedom case pretty as the circuit case may be pertinent called the broad household estate. it was basically in new york they have all of these public schools and they are empty during the weekends and there was a policy available for outside organizations to use as their meeting spaces but they decided that they didn't want any churches using schools during nonbusiness hours and adf sued on free exercise grounds or

you can't discriminate against religious people. i think they are absolutely right in that case and i personally very much approve of marriage so i don't approve of but they do on a marriage but on the litigation side i think they do excellent work. i was very happy to have them come and talk about the case. now a number of students found out that adf was coming and got upset to cassette their gay marriage work in a deal resolution was that there were students from the lgbt organization and they had a table where they were handing out leaflets explaining the position of adf. they came to our meeting with rainbow pins or rainbow shirts or whatever. they were ready to challenge the speaker if he said anything about gay marriage which he

didn't because the talk was not even about that and a good time was had by all. now admittedly this is not a great example because a greater example would be what if you wanted to speak out against gay marriage and then what would have happened and the answer is i don't know but i personally subjectively was never in doubt that we would have been allowed to go forward and that dean would have supported us and we still would have had a heated but civil discussion which is exactly the way that these things ought to happen. you mentioned the lawyer culture and risk management and one interesting thing that has happened recently, i have a number of friends who are on the faculty at harvard law school and so just by reading their facebook posts i have become aware. there was a documentary called a hunting ground which was about about -- rape and sexual assault on campus and there were a

number of professors who spoke out and said this documentary which took a position strongly in favor of victims of and sexual assault that had a number of statements and misleading things. and the makers of the documentary had a statement which i think was published in "the harvard crimson" where they said the fact that these professors were speaking out against the truth and reliability of the movie created a hostile empire met. now a naïve person might think a hostile environment just means people are mad. the word hostile environment is like the nuclear option because those are the magic trigger words related to the arrest of law. if you can show that in your workplace or whereever there's a hostile environment and if you can show that in court and that