By Wendy Underhill

In Illinois, a federal judge has blocked implementation of big parts of a 2014 law that created same day registration for the Land of Lincoln.

The law called for just one location to be offered for same day registration in counties under 100,000, and multiple locations in larger jurisdictions. That disparity based on size was at the heart of the ruling.

Whatever your feelings about same day registration isn’t my concern. Instead, in this one story, I see evidence that three truisms of election administration are in fact, true.

• One: Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream. Also known as the Purcell Principle, it’s long been noted that changing election law or procedures close to Election Day causes grief for administrators, who must run an election on time no matter what, and perhaps for voters, who don’t like confusion. The Illinois decision comes not quite six weeks out from the general election. Fortunately, it doesn’t change Election Day operations in a major way. And Illinoisans still have a chance to register in advance.
• Two: Standardization may rule the land of election administration before we know it. Time was, local administration of elections meant there was variation within a state on any of a number of fronts.  In recent years, legislatures have sought to standardize statewide procedures. Examples: the availability of early voting hours and days, election observer qualifications, types of voting equipment, or, as in this case, establishing different rules for larger counties and smaller counties.
• Three: Tussling between branches of government is inherent in our system. A recent flow of cases indicates that a law doesn’t necessarily become “the law of the land” until a court has signed off on it.  Voter identification laws, early voting laws, even straight ticket voting (in Michigan) can, and have been, seen through an “equal protection” lens. This leaves us with the question: who’s the boss, the courts or the legislatures?

Wendy Underhill directs NCSL’s elections and redistricting program.

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