VRM in the States: Electronic Registration

Elec­tronic Regis­tra­tion, some­times known as Auto­mated Regis­tra­tion, is a key compon­ent of Voter Regis­tra­tion Modern­iz­a­tion. This gives citizens the choice to be elec­tron­ic­ally registered to vote at the same time they do busi­ness with a govern­ment office, such as apply for a driver’s license or state veter­ans’ bene­fits, by digit­ally trans­fer­ring their voter regis­tra­tion inform­a­tion to the appro­pri­ate elec­tions office. This will upgrade our system, elim­in­ate errors caused by paper records, and clean up the voter rolls. 

• At least 35 states — Arizona, Arkan­sas, Cali­for­nia, Color­ado, Connecti­cut, Delaware, Flor­ida, Geor­gia, Illinois, Indi­ana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisi­ana, Mary­land, Massachu­setts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missis­sippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Caro­lina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Caro­lina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wash­ing­ton, and West Virginia — plus the District of Columbia, currently  or will soon have fully or substan­tially elec­tronic voter regis­tra­tion at DMVs.

• At least 32 states plus the District of Columbia currently or will soon have a full elec­tronic regis­tra­tion system in that no paper is exchanged between DMVs and elec­tion offi­cials. These full elec­tronic regis­tra­tion states include Arizona, Arkan­sas, Cali­for­nia, Color­ado, Connecti­cut, Delaware, Flor­ida, Geor­gia, Illinois, Indi­ana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisi­ana, Mary­land, Massachu­setts, Minnesota, Missis­sippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Caro­lina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Caro­lina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wash­ing­ton, and West Virginia. Three states have a partial elec­tronic regis­tra­tion system, whereby DMVs elec­tron­ic­ally trans­fer at least some regis­tra­tion inform­a­tion, but have not completely elim­in­ated the trans­fer of separ­ate paper forms. These partial elec­tronic regis­tra­tion states include Kentucky, Michigan, and South Caro­lina.

• At least three states, Delaware, Illinois, and Kentucky, have, or soon will have, elec­tronic regis­tra­tion at social service agen­cies in addi­tion to the DMV. 

• 38 state DMVs auto­mat­ic­ally register all eligible young men for the Select­ive Service, as do a vari­ety of other federal and state agen­cies. 

• Thanks to a 2002 federal law, the Help Amer­ica Vote Act, every state now has (or soon will have) a compu­ter­ized statewide voter regis­tra­tion data­base capable of shar­ing inform­a­tion in some form with other govern­ment data­bases.