By Ron Nelsen

For more than 40 years, I have run a small business here in Nevada, evolving my business practices and using common-sense solutions to keep up with the market. That’s something all small businesses must do to keep the doors open, and it is the kind of thinking the state of Nevada should embrace.

Our voter registration process must evolve to keep up with eligible voters looking for convenience in maintaining their registration and security in the voter rolls. We need an election system that works for all of us, and that’s what Question 5 is about.

Automatic Voter Registration is a solution to make Nevada’s voting system more secure, block ineligible people from voting, and make voter registration more convenient for Nevada’s busy working parents, military families, rural residents, and business owners. If passed, Question 5 will create a system that would automatically register eligible citizens to vote when they apply for, or update, their Nevada driver’s license or state ID, unless they choose to decline.

Voter registration today is relatively haphazard. We all have seen the volunteers with clipboards in the grocery store parking lots. There is a better way.

Most adults get driver’s licenses at the DMV. The DMV requires multiple layers of identification and verification to receive a license. With Automatic Voter Registration, while you’re there updating your ID your voter registration will also be updated. And, if you don’t want to register, you can decline quickly and easily.

Trained staff and accurate automatic systems will verify that only eligible citizens are registered and reduce the chance of human error, something people with clipboards in grocery store parking lots can’t do.

Last year, Oregon implemented a similar system and registered 250,000 more citizens to vote. And bipartisan election experts agree the system also reduced the number of ineligible people added to the voter rolls. More than a dozen other states—including Colorado, West Virginia, and Alaska—have followed suit and implemented Automatic Voter Registration systems.

Under such a system, election officials will no longer have to enter the data from each paper registration form that comes in. Voter registrations collected by volunteers with clipboards aren’t as secure, and data entry of paper forms can run into challenges with handwriting and other accuracy concerns. Question 5 solves both of these challenges.

It also does something else near and dear to a business owners’ heart—finds efficiencies that save money. Automating the process saves up to seven minutes per registration. A recent study shows it costs $2.65 to process a paper registration and just 3 cents to process automatic voter registration.

Business owners know to make a profit they must operate efficiently and use technology to their advantage. Question 5 is an opportunity for the state of Nevada to take a page from business owners and modernize voter registration rather than continue doing things the way they’ve always been done.

Automatic Voter Registration is a convenient, efficient, and cost-effective way to run voter registration in the state. In short, it is the kind of common-sense solution businesses embrace — and the kind of solution Nevada needs.

Ron Nelsen is the owner of the family-held small business Pioneer Overhead Door in Las Vegas.