What Shapiro's latest order means for voting, elections in Pa.

Automatic voter registration is coming to Pennsylvania.

Gov. Josh Shapiro on Tuesday announced that eligible state residents who are receiving new or renewed driver licenses and ID cards will be automatically taken through the voter registration application process unless they opt against it. In the past an eligible voter had to take additional steps to sign up.

Twenty-three other states already use an automatic voter registration system, according to the governor's office.

“Automatic voter registration is a commonsense step to ensure election security and save Pennsylvanians time and tax dollars," Shapiro said in a prepared statement. "Residents of our Commonwealth already provide proof of identity, residency, age, and citizenship at the DMV — all the information required to register to vote — so it makes good sense to streamline that process with voter registration."

The governor's office cited a 2019 Brennan Center for Justice study and a 2021 study by the Public Policy Institute of California that suggest automatic voter registration in other states has increased the number of registered voters and improved overall voter turnout.

Approximately 8.7 million Pennsylvanians were registered to vote as of 2022, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. U.S. Census Bureau estimates indicate that an additional 1.6 million eligible state residents are not yet registered.

In order to be eligible to vote, a person must be at least 18 years old on the date of the election, a U.S. citizen for at least 30 days before the election, and a resident of Pennsylvania and their election district for at least 30 days before the election.

“At PennDOT, we’re proud of our role in the voter registration process,” Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll said in a news release. “These latest enhancements are a great example of how, through constant collaboration with the Department of State, we work to make this process as efficient as possible for eligible Pennsylvania residents.”

While the switch to automatic voter registration was lauded by many of Shapiro's fellow Democratic officials, the Republican chair of the Senate's state government committee had a different take.

“Pre-checked registration ... encourages people to sleepwalk their way into being registered, potentially without understanding the significance of their actions," state Sen. Cris Dush (R-Jefferson) said in a news release. "It risks turning a solemn duty into a thoughtless action, exploiting the system to catch the unwitting, the uncertain and the unintentional, making a mockery of that solemn duty."

Dush also said he believes Shapiro's move to make the switch without the consent of the Legislature is a violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Bruce Siwy is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network's Pennsylvania state capital bureau. He can be reached at bsiwy@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @BruceSiwy.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Does PA have automatic voter registration? Yes, now it does.