Here's how voter registration should work: You move, your registration moves with you. You turn 18, you're added to the voters' logs. You pay taxes, get a license, sign up for state or federal benefits, and registration is automatic.

    But here's a dose of sad reality on the heels of another Independence Day: America, the world's shining beacon of democracy, does about as bad a job registering voters as any democracy on Earth.

    A study released this week by the New York University's Brennan Center for Justice studied voter registration, rating 17 democracies. The nations surveyed had available information and "face the same fundamental challenges in maintaining accurate voter rolls."

    America was dead last.

    The United States registers 68 percent of the voting age population. All but three nations studied register 91 percent or better, including France and Burundi. That's right - despite being a new democracy, surviving a period of genocide, facing massive AIDS death tolls - this central African country was able to register 23 percent more of its voting population.

    Argentina? Everyone who's eligible.

    Why so far behind? The United States puts the burden of registration on the voter. Elsewhere, government agencies share citizen information. Imagine: We move a lot, but registrations don't. They could, however, easily, cheaply, and more accurately than the current system.

    The Brennan report says U.S. problems can be fixed. Canada adopted a similar data-sharing process in 2000. It not only increased voter rolls, it decreased fraud and waste and has already paid for itself.

    The center praises U.S. Sen. Kit Bond for the Missouri Republican's role in passing the Help Americans Vote Act of 2002. One facet of that act was the creation of statewide databases, which were set up to accommodate data sharing with other agencies and states. The system is already ready; Congress just has to turn it on.

    "Data-sharing systems around the world add people to the voting rolls and automatically update voting rolls," explained Wendy Weiser, a deputy director at the center. "We have the modern tools in place to do this, we just don't have the mindset."

    She predicts Congress will address registration this year. The public needs to make sure they do.

    A data-sharing system, one that scours records in existing state and federal databases and applies them to voting logs, can do more than increase registration. Americans, once registered, vote at lower levels than many other democracies, as well. Studies show that hurdles anywhere in the process discourage voting, Weiser said.

    The details have to be worked out. But, as Bond noted, it's easy to support increasing registration and decreasing fraud and costs.

    It's time for the U.S. to participate in the advancements being made elsewhere.