Since January 1995, when the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) went into effect, people have been registering or updating their voting addresses at the rate of nearly one million per month in 42 states. Based on early figures, we expect that the rolls will rise by 20 million before the 1996 election and 20 million more by the 1998 midterm election when the full four-year drivers' license renewal cycle will be completed. The resulting increase would be far and away the largest among already eligible voters (as contrasted with the enfranchising of new groups, such as women and 18-year-olds) since the personal voter registration system was introduced in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

The NVRA requires that states offer to register people to vote when they get or renew drivers' licenses (called “motor voter”), or when they apply for AFDC, Food Stamps, Medicaid, WIC, and disability services (called “agency-based” voter registration). Roughly eight million enrolled or updated their voting addresses in the first nine months—four million of them in drivers' license agencies, one million in public assistance agencies, and three million by mail.