Do Americans Want Automatic Voter Registration?

Democratic lawmakers in Maryland have proposed legislation that would automatically register to vote all eligible residents who avail themselves of government social services or sign up for Obamacare through the state's health insurance exchange. California and Oregon automatically add people to the state voter rolls when they seek driver's licenses, but the Maryland plan would go well beyond that.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just over half (51%) of Likely U.S. Voters oppose an automatic voter registration plan for their state like the one proposed in Maryland. Thirty-four percent (34%) favor a voter registration plan in their state that would automatically enroll anyone who applies for government social services or signs up for health insurance through an Obamacare-established exchange. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 10-11, 2016 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.