People keep asking me why young people don't vote. I can now tell you at least one of the reasons - Registering to vote is at least the 2nd or 3rd circle of Hell. I run a pro-democracy org ( @Renew_Democracy) yet it took me 2-3 hrs to register in NYC. This is my story. 1/7

It started (as it usually does) when I procrastinated until the 2nd to last week before the deadline. Then, I tried to register online and lo & behold, I can't! You can only register online in NY if you have a NY license or ID. I recently moved from DC so I have a DC license. 2/7

Next, you can mail in your registration. Great! Except, you also have to print everything out, put the papers together in the form of an envelope, & trust it stays together. Problem 1) As a dedicated millennial, I hadn't used my printer in ages, so I needed to get new ink. 3/7

2) I also didn't trust that my regular old printer paper could hold together effectively as a makeshift "envelope" (Since in NY, one of the registration pages is supposed to serve as the envelope itself). Ok, so why dont I register in person? Oh, because it turns out that you 4/7

can't register at the DMV (as I had originally *mistakenly* believed). You have to register at the Board of Elections. There are 2 offices in Manhattan and they are both far Downtown. As most Americans do, I have a job that takes up far more than 40 hours a week, so I was 5/7

hard-pressed to invest multiple hours traveling and waiting in line to make this happen. In the end, I got thicker paper that I felt more comfortable sending in the mail, new ink, printed everything out, folded & taped it together, and then dropped it off at the Post Office. 6/7

Moral: 1) Voter reg is hard if you move around. Young ppl are transient making it hard to register 2) It's a bipartisan bureaucracy problem 3) Theres no shame in not knowing your state's rules. Do research. 4) Automatic registration should be the norm for EVERYONE EVERYWHERE. 7/7

Extra Credit Tweet: If we can't make Automatic Registration a thing, we should at the VERY least, offer same-day registration for voters! It is unconscionable that we make one of the most basic acts of civic participation so difficult.

I’ve seen some people respond that this isn’t “hell” and that 2-3 hrs isn’t the end of the world. Of course it’s not! But voting is a RIGHT; not a privilege. We should be encouraging everyone to have a stake in the system; not making it harder & then shaming ppl for not doing it