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Long title | An Act to establish national voter registration procedures for Federal elections, and for other purposes. |
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Acronyms (colloquial) | NVRA |
Nicknames | National Voter Registration Act, Motor Voter |
Enacted by | the 103rd United States Congress |
Effective | January 1, 1995 |
Citations | |
Public law | 103-31 |
Statutes at Large | 107 Stat. 77 |
Codification | |
Titles amended | Title 52—Voting and Elections[a] |
U.S.C. sections created | 52 U.S.C. §§ 20501–20511[b] |
Legislative history | |
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United States Supreme Court cases | |
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Part of the Politics series |
Voting |
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The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Act, is a United States federal law signed into law by President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993, that came into effect on January 1, 1995.[1] The law was enacted under the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution and advances voting rights in the United States by requiring state governments to offer simplified voter registration processes for any eligible person who applies for or renews a driver's license or applies for public assistance, and requiring the United States Postal Service to mail election materials of a state as if the state is a nonprofit.[2] The law requires states to register applicants that use a federal voter registration form, and prohibits states from removing registered voters from the voter rolls unless certain criteria are met.
The act exempts from its requirements states that have continuously since August 1, 1994 not required voter registration for federal elections or offered election day registration (EDR) for federal general elections.[3] Six states qualify for the exemption: North Dakota, which does not require registration, and Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming because of the EDR exemption.[4]: 444 While some have recently asserted that Maine lost the exemption when it abolished EDR in 2011 (which it subsequently restored), Maine has never considered itself exempt from the act. [5] [6] [7]
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