National Voter Registration Act of 1993

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National Voter Registration Act of 1993

Long title	An Act to establish national voter registration procedures for Federal elections, and for other purposes.
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
Introduced in the House as H.R. 2 by Al Swift (D–WA) on January 5, 1993 Committee consideration by House Administration Passed the House on February 4, 1993 (259–160) Passed the Senate on March 17, 1993 (62–37) Reported by the joint conference committee on April 28, 1993; agreed to by the House on May 5, 1993 (259–164) and by the Senate on May 11, 1993 (62–36) Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993
United States Supreme Court cases
Young v. Fordice, 520 U.S. 273 (1997) Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008) Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., 570 U.S. 1 (2013) Husted v. Randolph Institute, No. 16-980, 584 U.S. ___ (2018)

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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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