Online Voter Registration Update

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Earlier this month, we wrote about 13 states that now allow voters to register or update their registration information online, including five that rolled out this option statewide for the first time this year.

In August, Ohio launched its own online tool to allow voters to update the address information in their voter registration record. While the system does not allow new voters to register, more than 100,000 voters took advantage of this tool in the two-month period before the close of registration on October 9. One-third of these updates occurred in the week prior to the deadline, including more than 13,000 just the day before registration closed.

Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) observed that this could help decrease the number of provisional ballots issued at polling places on Election Day. The most common reason voters need provisional ballots in Ohio is not having updated address information.

And, in an update on states that do allow new voters to register online, in early October we reported 220,000 Californians had used the state system to register or update their information. More than one million Californians submitted registration applications or updates by the October 22 deadline. 

To the north in Oregon, where online voter registration has been in place since 2010, nearly 20,000 voters used the system on the day of the state’s October 16 registration deadline.