Reponse to mijk

Mijk asks, "what the hell is voter registration?"

For non-U.S.ians, the voter registration system must be a really messy and confusing thing. The basic principles are that voter registration evolved as a system to make sure only the right people voted. The right people used to be white men with property. The property definition was relaxed over the last centuries, although it went through periods of tightening. For example, literacy requirements excluded a lot of poor people who never learned to read.

Black people were briefly enfranchised (given the right to vote) after the Civil War, but restrictions were quickly put into place to keep them from voting. Women, white and African-American, legally won the right to vote in 1920, but in practical terms African-Americans were still barred from voting. Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans and Native Americans fell under a complicated maze of laws that barred them from full citizenship and voting until the mid-20th century.

Full timeline: http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/0410/041005.htm

Unfortunately, the voter registration remains as an informal mechanism to make sure that more of the "right people" vote.

I already listed some of the racial differences in rates. Here are the class ones.

National Low Income Housing Coalition
However, census data confirms that low income voters are registered and vote at lower rates than higher-income citizens. While 82% of people with incomes of over $75,000 were registered to vote in 2000 and 75% of those registered actually voted, just 59% of people with incomes between $10,000 and $14,999 were registered, and only 44% of those registered actually voted.

Low income people face several challenges to voting: less-flexible jobs that may not allow time off for voting, transportation impediments that may make getting to the polls more difficult, and a greater likelihood of misinformation about their rights as voters that may make people shy away from voting. People experiencing homelessness, ex-felons, and survivors of the 2005 hurricanes may face especially tough barriers to voting.