Democrats will visit SIUC today to criticize Gov. Jim Edgar’s two-tier motor voter plan, which will register voters for federal elections but not state and local elections.

State Representative David Phelps, D-Eldorado, and Cook County Clerk David Orr will criticize the plan at a press conference at 4:45 p.m. in the Mississippi Room of the Student Center

The motor voter plan is an unfunded mandate which requires states to register voters while registering motorists.

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Ryan Chew, aid to Orr, said under Edgar’s plan, Illinois voters will only be registered for congressional and presidential elections which would create confusion among the electorate.

The two-tier system will be very confusing to voters, Chew said. Voters may become angry and cynical because they’ll think that the whole voter registration is a trick.

Gayle Klam, board member of the Jackson County League of Women Voters, agreed with Chew and said Edgar’s system would confuse voters into believing they were registering for both elections, not just the national elections.

Chew said the reason for Edgar’s two-tier motor voter plan is Edgar’s fear that more democrats would be registered to vote under the one-tier plan that Orr, Phelps and the League of Women Voters support

than under the two-tier plan.

Carbondale Township Supervisor Clara McClure said the League of Women Voters has been trying to pressure the government and legislators to get legislation of the one-tier plan passed in Illinois.

Other states have already passed and implemented the plan, McClure said. Their governors didn’t drag their feet like Edgar did.

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Eric Robinson, spokesperson for Edgar, said the reason Edgar supports the two-tier plan is because Edgar is concerned about election fraud under the one-tier plan.

Many safeguards already present are not held under the (federal) motor voter plan, Robinson said.

see VOTER, page 5