National Voter Registration Act of 1993 - History of The Act

History of The Act

This voter registration movement was spearheaded by the husband and wife team of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward in the early 1980s in response to the Reagan administration. Both of them college professors and liberal activists, it was Piven's and Cloward's belief that through government implementation of more active registration proposals, it would increase voter turnout rates which had been on a steady decline since the monumental election of 1896. The NVRA encourages people of all demographics to vote despite their socioeconomic situations and backgrounds. Political parties, in particular Democrats, were hoping that the NVRA would reduce racial disparities and close the electoral gap by including more minorities, low income earners, individuals on public assistance and other individuals reluctant to vote.

Read more about this topic:  National Voter Registration Act Of 1993

Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history and/or act:

    The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    [Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.
    Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.
    Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)

    The situation is that of him who is helpless, cannot act, in the event cannot paint, since he is obliged to paint. The act is of him who, helpless, unable to act, acts, in the event paints, since he is obliged to paint.
    Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)