Brennan Center for Justice

Rhode Island currently has the Automated Registration at DMVs component of Voter Registration Modernization in place. Rhode Island also has pre-registration.

The excerpt below was adapted from an appendix to the 2010 report Voter Registration in a Digital Age.

Background
Rhode Island developed a statewide voter registration system in 2004, and election officials seized this opportunity to adopt a new process for collecting voter registrations at the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and transferring them to local election offices. According to Director of Elections Janet Ruggiero, the old paper-based approach produced an unacceptable number of lost registration claims, and officials hoped that electronic data transfers would prove more reliable.

Because work on the automated system was bundled into the larger project of developing a statewide voter registration system, a total cost estimate is not available. However, Ms. Ruggiero estimates that the state incurred separate costs of $20,000 for hardware and $50,000 for programming at the DMV. The new automated system debuted in August 2005.

Outcomes
Voter Registration.  DMV voter registrations have increased significantly following automation. In 2005, the state recorded 10,870 registrations at the DMV, compared to 26,043 in 2006, and a yearly average of 23,650 from 2006 through 2009.

Efficiency.  Ms. Ruggiero reports that the automated system saves time and improves accuracy at the local level by eliminating data entry, and with it the potential for keying errors. She states that it has proven far more reliable than the old paper-based system, so that problems with lost application claims on Election Day are largely a thing of the past.
 

Track Record and Future Plans
According to Ms. Ruggiero, officials continue to receive a great deal of positive feedback from the public about the automated process, and it is popular with DMV and local election officials as well. There have been no technical problems with the new system.

How Paperless Registration Works in Rhode Island
For Visitors. People who visit the DMV to apply for or renew a driver’s license or identification card go through an interview with DMV employees. At the end of the interview an employee asks each customer if she would like to register to vote, at which time she can also update an existing registration. If the customer would like to make either a new registration or an update, the employee will inquire whether she has been previously registered and request a statement of party preference.

Customers then move down the counter to an electronic pad that they use to make payments, answer further questions for the DMV, and provide a digitized signature. If a customer has initiated a registration transaction, the pad also presents her a set of questions about her age and eligibility to register.

After a visitor signs her name at the pad and has her picture taken for the DMV, she receives a printed receipt which notes whether she made a voter registration transaction and, if so, what information she provided. Prior to 2005 employees printed pre-populated voter registration forms for interested customers.

For Motor Vehicle and Election Officials. The DMV requires customers to submit their full Social Security number, which its computers check against the Social Security Administration’s records in real time during interviews. If no match is found, the interview will not proceed, and the customer will not be given the chance to submit a registration.

At the end of an interview, DMV employees are prompted by their computer programs to ask customers whether they would like to submit or update a voter registration, and must indicate whether the customer answered yes or no. If a customer chooses to initiate a registration transaction, the interviewer’s only additional task is to ask about previous registrations and party preference, and to copy the customer’s responses into his computer.

Registration data and accompanying digitized signatures are posted to a secure FTP site each night. A private vendor retrieves the applications, sorts them by town or city, and then enters them into the statewide voter registration system to be provided to local election officials. The state system uses a statewide street index to attempt to verify the address included in each application before it reaches local officials. Local election officials then resolve any duplicates, assign precincts, and accept applications.

In the past, Rhode Island has considered the following VRM-related legislation:

• Pre-Registration. New legislation in Rhode Island allows voter pre-registration for sixteen and seventeen year-olds. (S. 85 [pdf])