Unregistered Voters: The federal government requires the state to ask social-service clients if they want to register to vote; so how come so many are left out in the cold?

Paul O’Hanlon calls it his “A-ha!” moment.

It came around 2002, just as he was starting work as a voting-rights lawyer and learning about the National Voter Registration Act, a law designed to expand access to the ballot box by requiring places like DMVs, welfare offices and disability agencies to double as voter-registration centers. The question the law requires these agencies to ask is simple: “If you are not registered to vote where you live now, would you like to register to vote here today?”

“As a person with a disability … I wasn’t seeing anybody asking the mandatory question,” recalls O’Hanlon, who works for the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania. “I sort of realized that’s never happened to me….”