(Response to “Automatic voter registration: An idea whose time has come” by Andrew Villeneuve) I could feel my blood pressure rise reading Villeneuve’s letter in the July 8th edition of the Kirkland Reporter. I beg to differ with Villeneuve’s stance that voters should automatically be registered or that registering to vote is “hard.” I do not think going to the Department of Licensing is difficult, nor is filling out a form that Villeneuve argues should be abolished.

He points out that our 2008 Presidential election brought record voters to the polls and our Fall election is likely to see fewer voters. While I agree, I seriously doubt that an automatic registration will have every election bringing record numbers of voters to the polls. Voters have to be interested in the election, and unfortunately there are a lot of uneducated or uninformed voters in our country. Some of these voters went to the polls last fall to fill in one oval and I doubt they knew anything about anyone or anything else on the ballot. Giving people the automatic registration does not educate our voters, and Villeneuve states that the “onus of registration is on the citizen.” As it should be. If you can’t even take the time and energy to figure out how to register to vote, how could you possibly determine what the right direction for our city, county, and country is?

Christine McMahon Malchow, Kirkland resident and 45th District Precinct Committee Officer