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By Henal Patel and Shennell McCloud

In the midst of a long-overdue racial reckoning and partially in response to it America is experiencing a new wave of voter restriction laws harkening back to the decades of Jim Crow. Indeed, many of these laws are specifically designed to suppress the votes of Black and brown Americans across the country who showed up in strong numbers in 2020.

Concerned Americans watch day after day as efforts to pass democracy protection legislation in Washington are thwarted by political obstacles.

Were clutching tightly to hard-won rights while people in power are determined to yank us back decades.

We do, of course, need Congress to act. But we also need states like New Jersey to be a bulwark against these trends and to hold the line for the opposite stance: to say we are not afraid of more people voting. We wholeheartedly embrace democracy and seek to expand it.

So what should New Jersey do?

It is true that we have recently passed a slew of pro-democracy initiatives: online and automatic voter registration, restoring the vote to those on probation and parole, ending legislative prison-based gerrymandering and, most recently, early in-person voting.

But we have failed to enact a fundamental and logical opportunity to increase access to the ballot something that 20 states and Washington D.C. already have: same-day registration. In these states, people can register and vote on the same day. They have democracy in a day.

In contrast, New Jersey maintains a three-week arbitrary voter registration deadline that disenfranchises people every election. Studies have shown that same-day registration increases turnout by an average of 5%, with as much as a 10-percentage-point increase for young people. Studies have also shown that the greatest voter turnout increase is on Election Day and the days leading up to it. If your goal is to make voting as easy as possible, there is simply no reason to prohibit people from registering on the day they cast their ballot.

Same-day voter registration has also proven to increase voter turnout among people of color while denying people that access disproportionately affects African-Americans and Latina/Latino communities.

Of course, that is the point of many of todays new laws but New Jersey shouldnt be a member of that club.

A recent study found that Black voter turnout is on average 2 - to 17-percentage points higher and Latina/Latino is on average 0.1- 17.5-percentage points higher in states with same-day voter registration than similar states that do not have same-day voter registration. When enacted in North Carolina, African Americans made up 36% of those who utilized same-day registration to vote in the 2008 presidential election, even though they only made up 22% of the voting-age population.

Beyond voter turnout, same-day registration is an effective way to achieve more accurate voter rolls. When a voter registers at a new address, the voter rolls are updated and county elections departments have a more accurate picture of registered voters within their jurisdiction. These rolls also ensure that mail-in ballots and important voting information can be sent to the right address. In this way, same-day voter registration will help election officials.

Finally, contrary to scare-mongering claims, same-day registration is secure. Voters will be required to provide the same information they do in traditional voter registration, and county election officials will have the time to verify eligibility before counting their votes.

We like to think of ourselves in New Jersey as an enlightened state pushing back against many of the dangerous trends facing America right now. But we cannot claim to be a leader in the fight to save our democracy until we make voting as accessible and equitable as possible. Right now, we are behind 20 other states on this essential issue.

Legislators should pass A4548/S2824 and Gov. Phil Murphy should sign same-day registration into law quickly. Let them know.

Henal Patel is the director of the Democracy & Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

Shennell McCloud is the CEO of Project Ready, a nonprofit social justice organization.

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People in 20 other states can get democracy in a day. New Jersey, unfortunately, isnt one of them. | Opinion - NJ.com