New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has finally decided to veto an automatic voter registration bill that he's been sitting on for months because, according to him, automatic registration creates more opportunity for fraud.
After sitting on the “Democracy Act” for almost five months, the governor and Republican presidential candidate vetoed his third voting rights-related bill in three years, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. [...]
“In New Jersey, we have early voting that are available to people,” he said in June. “I don’t want to expand it and increase the opportunities for fraud.”
It's not clear to me how automatic voter registration would increase opportunities for fraud. On the contrary, wouldn't automatic registration actually reduce the number of opportunities for fraud? If you're contending, as the governor appears to be, that fraud begins at registration, I would think automatic registration would eliminate the middleman.
Legitimate cases of voter fraud uncovered over the last 10 years are fewer in number than UFO sightings counted in a single day.
The New Jersey Working Families (NJWF) non-profit reportedly intends to force a vote on automatic registration with a ballot initiative.