Bill to eliminate double voter registration seeks Senate path

It was House Bill 146 sponsored by 36th District Representative Bryan Shupe that went through the steps to be heard on the house floor but it never did.

The goal was to make voter registration more efficient, allowing people to sign up once for general and municipal elections.

“It’s also a problem in 45 of the 57 municipalities throughout Delaware so it’s all three counties that we’re seeing this happen and people are literally being turned away on election day in their local town,” Shupe said.

Now the bill is being taken through the Senate process officially as Senate Bill 233. Third district Senator Elizabeth Lockman who represents western and central Wilmington says this bill is about fairness.

“It’s hard enough for folks to get the information they need sometimes to participate in certain processes and the more that we can streamline and make those processes accessible and understandable the better we are going to be able to serve people,” Lockman said.

The twelve municipalities that allow one registration to vote in both elections include Georgetown, Lewes, Milton, Laurel and Seaford. Milford also just changed their policy two weeks ago. But everyone else has to register twice, which some people didn’t know.

“We had a referendum for the police department,” Shupe said. “I received several calls saying look we want to vote for the new police building but we weren’t told we were registered a second time in Milford and we can’t vote in this election.”

Senator Lockman says there’s also a separate discussion on another bill that would allow unrestricted mail-in and absentee voting.

“I’m hopeful that we’ll let’s do all of the good stuff and get more people a cleaner more streamlined opportunity to cast their votes,” Lockman said.

Senate Bill 233 will be heard in the Senate Elections Committee on Wednesday morning.