VRM in the States: Kansas
Kansas currently has the Electronic Registration at DMVs and Online Registration components of Voter Registration Modernization in place. Kansas also has electronic pollbooks in at least one county.
The excerpt below was adapted from an appendix to the 2010 report Voter Registration in a Digital Age.
Background
The state began work on automated DMV registration in 2007, and introduced it to the public in August 2008. During this time officials decided to develop online voter registration as well. After six to eight months of development they quietly launched the program in May 2009 and officially announced it that July. State IT staff were responsible for developing both the online and the automated registration systems.
In May 2009, the DMV also automated its process for transmitting updates from its online change-of-address program to the statewide voter registration system. The DMV introduced this program in the mid-1990s and has offered to forward updates to election officials since that time, but until last year it sent them to county offices by e-mail.
Outcomes
Kansas recently saw a large jump in DMV registrations. The state reported approximately 110,000 of these transactions in 2007-08, compared to over 107,000 in 2009 alone. Use of the online portal was limited in the months after its introduction, likely due in part to the fact that there were no regular elections during that time.
Kansas’s paperless systems have improved the registration process in a variety of ways. One local official estimates that counties can process electronic applications twice as quickly as paper forms. And automation at the DMV has reduced the number of registrations forwarded to the wrong county, while fewer unregistered people are erroneously supplying a change of address rather than making a new registration. According to Brad Bryant, the State Election Director, the online and automated DMV registration systems have not been difficult to develop or maintain.
How Paperless Registration Works in Kansas
Electronic Registration. A visitor does business with the DMV by going through an interview, and the interviewer will ask her if she would like to register to vote. If so, the interview asks whether she is a voting-age U.S. citizen and requests a statement of party preference and a telephone number. At the end of the interview the visitor reviews a printed declaration of registration eligibility and provides her signature. If the visitor is already registered to vote and updates her address with the DMV, the interviewer will ask if he can apply the update to her voter registration as well. She need only assent for this to be done.
Registration data are automatically collected and transmitted each night to the statewide voter registration system, which in turn provides them to the appropriate counties for review. Counties process electronic transactions in the same way they do paper forms: checking their completeness and address validity, providing precinct assignments, and examining any potential duplicates.
Online Registration. Only Kansas residents who have a valid driver’s license or non-driver’s identification card can register through the state’s online registration system. Users first navigate to an introductory page on the Kansas Department of Revenue’s website that outlines the online process, and click a button to begin. After affirming her eligibility to register, a user must provide her name, date of birth, and driver’s license or state identification card number in order to proceed.
On the next page the user must enter her address and party affiliation, and may also enter a separate mailing address and other information. After checking a box next to an affirmation of eligibility and typing her name in a ‘signature’ box, she reviews her data, submits it, and receives an electronic receipt. The online system will then forward the application to county officials, though first it searches DMV records for a matching driver’s license or non-driver’s identification card number. A person may also submit a registration or address update through the DMV’s online change of address service.
