The fact that voter participation in this country is abysmally low has come to be accepted as ordinary. Many argue that Americans are either apathetic, lazy, or perhaps both. Curiously, studies of voter participation don’t indicate apathy as a significant factor in voter nonparticipation.

Rather, the encumbrance of voter registration is indicated as one of many significant factors in voter nonparticipation. In countries where individuals are required to register, voter participation is significantly less. Pre-election registration deadlines (usually about 30 days before the election) serve to exclude citizens from the vote who fail to think registration significant enough before the vote — usually young and low-income voters.

This exclusionary practice is a tragedy because it serves no worthy purpose, while simultaneously erecting a hurdle to voter participation. The belief that voter registration helps combat voter fraud is misguided. This same protection can be achieved by other means. In fact, in most developed countries, there are no registration requirements because the act of voting is implicit in the role of citizenship. Moreover, there are very few reported incidents of voter fraud. Rather, there are problems with election fraud, which, though often confused with voter fraud, is wholly different. Election fraud most often occurs in the miscounting of votes — a crime that cannot be prevented through voter registration.

Perhaps the most compelling argument against the requirement of voter registration is philosophical in nature. The encumbrance of voter registration is part of a legacy of policies designed to keep people from voting. The argument for wait periods and registration deadlines is that we don’t want everybody to vote — only those deemed dependable and concerned enough to take responsibility to “participate in democracy” through registration.

Moreover, the practice makes a number of autocratic implications, namely that not all American citizens can be trusted to vote and that filling out a piece of paper is a valid test for judging who should be.

But this test is neither necessary nor legitimate and has instead created a separate class of people who vote. This is patently undemocratic. The very act of voting itself is the expression of civic participation and commitment ­— anything more is another exclusionary loop to jump through.

Though voter registration isn’t going away, there’s something going on in Washington and Arizona that could prove to be a big step in the right direction. Instant, online voter registration has been implemented in both states, making registration less of an obstacle. Unfortunately, very few people know about it and the tool remains drastically underused.

However, a nonpartisan, student group called “Your Revolution” has recently developed an application that allows individuals to register directly from their Facebook profiles and invite their friends to register. It also provides a number of tools for activist organizing.

With 85 percent of college students on Facebook and more than 200,000 new users daily, the application possesses huge possibilities of viral potency. In its kick off, happening tomorrow on the HUB lawn, “Your Revolution” is celebrating the beginning of a massive voter registration drive. The group will award $20,000 to the student government of the school in Washington or Arizona that is able to register the most new voters.

If successful, and “Your Revolution” goes viral, the contest could transform methods of voter registration and counteract the traditional obstacles to voter registration. Were large numbers of new, college-age voters to register, instant online voter registration could have an impact on the outcome of the presidential race in Arizona.

If instant online voter registration spreads to the 48 other states, it could mean a transformation of voter registration and the inclusion of more citizens in the right of voting.

Check it out for yourself at YourRevolution.org.

[Reach columnist Sarah Gaither at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]