Voter registration in the United States

A group of African-American children gather around a sign and booth to register voters. Early 1960s.

In the United States, citizens are not automatically eligible for voting, unless they registered at the county level. The only exception is North Dakota, although local jurisdictions in North Dakota may create such a requirement. In most states, citizens registering to vote may declare an affiliation with a political party. This declaration of affiliation does not make the citizen a dues-paying member of a party, and may be changed at any time. In many states, only voters affiliated with a party may vote in that party's primary elections, which are then called closed primaries.

It has been proposed by some that registration requirements contribute to discouraging people from exercising their right to vote, thereby causing a lower voter turnout. According to a 2012 study, 24% of the voting-eligible population in the United States are not registered to vote, equaling some 51 million U.S. citizens. While voters traditionally had to register at government offices by a certain amount of time before the election, in the mid-1990s, the federal government made efforts to facilitate registering, in an attempt to increase turnout. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the "Motor Voter" law) forced state governments to either provide uniform opt-in registration services through drivers' license registration centers, disability centers, schools, libraries, and mail-in registration, or to allow Election Day voter registration, where voters can register at polling places immediately prior to voting. In 2015, Oregon became the first state to make voter registration fully automatic (opt-out) when issuing driver licenses and ID cards. Political parties and other organizations sometimes hold voter registration drives, organized efforts to register groups of new voters.

Federal jurisdiction

While the federal government has jurisdiction over federal elections, most election laws are decided at the state level. The United States Constitution prohibits states from restricting voting rights in ways that infringe on a person's right to equal protection under the law (14th Amendment), on the basis of race (15th Amendment), on the basis of sex (19th Amendment), or on the basis of age for persons age 18 and older (26th Amendment). The administration of elections may however vary widely across jurisdictions.

Only US citizens have the right to vote in federal elections. In a few cases, permanent residents ("green card" holders) have registered to vote and have cast ballots, generally without realizing that doing so was illegal. Non-citizens convicted in criminal court of having made a false claim of citizenship for the purpose of registering to vote in a federal election can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year. Deportation and removal proceedings have resulted from several such cases. Some states prohibit convicted felons from voting, a practice known as felony disenfranchisement. Of these states, some prohibit voting only during parole or probation but allow voting after. A small number of states may require repeat offenders to have their voting rights restored through court action.

Party affiliation

In many states, citizens registering to vote may declare an affiliation with a political party. This declaration of affiliation does not cost money, and does not make the citizen a dues-paying member of a party. A party cannot prevent a voter from declaring his or her affiliation with them, but it can refuse requests for full membership. In some states, only voters affiliated with a party may vote in that party's primary elections. Declaring a party affiliation is never required. Some states, including Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington, practice non-partisan registration.

Effect on participation

A 2012 study by The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that 24% of the voting-eligible population in the United States are not registered to vote, a percentage that represents "at least 51 million eligible U.S. citizens." the study suggests that registration requirements contribute to discouraging people from exercising their right to vote, thereby causing a lower voter turnout. The extent of discouragement and its effect on increasing the socioeconomic bias of the electorate however remain contested.

In a 1980 landmark study, Raymond E. Wolfinger and Steven J. Rosenstone came to the conclusion that less restrictive registration requirements would substantially increase the electoral turnout. According to their probit analysis, if all states adopted the procedures of the most permissive state regulations, which would mean:

1. eliminating the closing date
2. opening registration offices during the forty-hour work week
3. opening registration offices in the evening and/or on Saturday
4. permitting absentee registration for the sick, disabled and absent

(p 73) turnout in the 1972 presidential election would have been 9.1% higher, with 12.2 million additional people having voted. In a seminal 1988 book, sociologists Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven argued that lowering registration requirements would improve socioeconomic equality in the composition of the electorate.

Findings such as this have inspired lawmakers to facilitate the registration process, eventually leading to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (or "Motor Voter" act) that required states to allow voter registration at various public offices, including drivers' license registration centers, disability centers, schools, libraries, as well as mail-in registration, unless a state adopts Election Day voter registration. The way towards passing this piece of federal legislation was however lengthy and rocky, as these reforms were highly contested. In an expanded 1990 edition of their 1988 book, titled "Why Americans still don't vote: and why politicians want it that way," Cloward and Piven argued that the reforms were expected to encourage less-priviledged groups which happen to lean towards the Democratic Party.

While the turnout at federal elections did substantially increase following the electoral reforms, the effect fell short of Wolfinger and Rosenstone's expectations while Cloward's and Piven's hope of improving the demographic representativeness of the electorate wasn't fulfilled at all. Political scientist Adam Berinsky concluded in a 2005 article that the reforms designed to make voting "easier" in their entirety had an opposite effect, actually increasing the preexisting socioeconomic biases by ensuring "that those citizens who are most engaged with the political world – those with politically relevant resources – continue to participate, whereas those individuals without such resources fall by the wayside." As Berinsky reaffirms in a 2016 piece, the only way to increase turnout while improving representativeness, is making more people become interested in politics.

Forms of facilitation

Registration centers

Traditionally, voters have had to register at government offices to vote, but in the mid-1990s the federal government made registering easier, in an attempt to increase turnout. The most prominent example was the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, also known as the "Motor Voter" law, which forced state governments to provide uniform opt-in registration services through drivers' license registration centers, disability centers, schools, libraries, and mail-in registration. While the States with same-day registration on Election Day were exempt from these requirements.

Online registration

An increasing number of states have begun to allow voter registration to take place entirely online. As of May 9, 2016 the states that have approved online registration are:

State	Year Enacted	Bill Number	Year Implemented	Website
Alabama	n/a	No legislation required	2016	Alabama Votes
Alaska	n/a	No legislation required	2015	Alaska Online Voter Registration
Arizona	n/a	No legislation required	2002	EZ Voter Registration
California	2011	SB 397	2012	California Online Voter Registration
Colorado	2009	HB 1160	2010	Go Vote Colorado
Connecticut	2012	HB 5024	2014	Connecticut Online Voter Registration
Delaware	n/a	No legislation required	2014	I Vote Delaware
District of Columbia	2014	B20-0264	2015	District of Columbia Online Voter Registration
Florida	2015	SB 228	n/a	Not implemented yet
Georgia	2012	SB 92	2014	Georgia Online Voter Registration
Hawaii	2012	HB 1755	2015	Hawaii Online Voter Registration
Idaho	2016	SB 1297	n/a	Not implemented yet
Illinois	2013	HB 2418	2014	Illinois Online Voter Registration
Indiana	2009	HB 1346	2010	Indiana Online Voter Registration
Iowa	n/a	No legislation required	2016	Iowa Online Voter Registration
Kansas	n/a	No legislation required	2009	Kansas Online Voter Registration
Kentucky	n/a	No legislation required	2016	Kentucky Online Voter Registration
Louisiana	2009	HB 520	2010	Geaux Vote
Maryland	2011	HB 740	2012	Maryland Online Voter Registration
Massachusetts	2014	HB 3788	2015	Massachusetts Online Voter Registration
Minnesota	2014	HF 2096	2013	MN Votes
Missouri	n/a	No legislation required	2014	Vote Missouri
Nebraska	2014	LB 661	2015	Nebraska Online Voter Registration
Nevada	2011	AB 82	2012	Nevada Online Voter Registration
New Mexico	2015	SB 643	2016	New Mexico Online Voter Registration
New York	n/a	No legislation required	2011	New York Electronic Voter Registration
Oklahoma	2015	SB 313	n/a	Not implemented yet
Oregon	2009	HB 2386	2010	OreStar
Pennsylvania	n/a	No legislation required	2015	PA Online Voter Registration
Rhode Island	2016	SB 2513	n/a	Not implemented yet
South Carolina	2012	HB 4945	2012	S.C. Online Voter Registration
Tennessee	2016	SB1626/HB1472	n/a	Not implemented yet
Utah	2009	SB 25	2010	Utah Online Voter Registration
Vermont	n/a	No legislation required	2015	Vermont Online Voter Registration
Virginia	2013	HB 2341	2013	Virginia Voter Registration
Washington	2007	HB 1528	2008	MyVote
West Virginia	2013	SB 477	2015	West Virginia Online Voter Registration
Wisconsin	2016	SB 295	n/a	Not implemented yet

Automatic registration

In 2015, Oregon made voter registration fully automatic (opt out) when issuing driver licenses and ID cards. By April 2016 three more states - California, West Virginia, and Vermont - followed suit, bringing the number of states with automatic voter registration to 4. Several more states have since created legislation proposing automatic registration as well

Election Day voter registration

In some states of the United States, Election Day voter registration (also known as EDR) permits eligible citizens to register to vote when they arrive to vote on Election Day. It is also known as same-day registration, the name also used in states that allow voters to register and vote during the early voting period before Election Day.

The majority of U.S. states still require voters 2–4 weeks before an election, with various deadlines (such as 30 days or 15 days). Election Day voter registration allows eligible citizens to register or update their registration on election day at the polls or their local election office by showing valid identification to a poll worker or election official, who checks the identification, consults the registration list and, if they are not registered or the registration is out of date, registers them on the spot.

Eleven states currently have some form of Election Day voter registration: Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Washington DC. Montana began Election Day voter registration in 2006, and Iowa in 2008. In 2012, Connecticut and California both enacted new laws to implement Election Day Registration. Connecticut started with its municipal elections in 2013. Colorado followed enacting EDR for the 2014 election. Illinois implemented a pilot in 2014 and made EDR permanent starting in 2015. Rhode Island also have Election Day registration for presidential elections. California will start in 2015 or once it has implemented its statewide voter registration database. (North Dakota, unique among the states, has no voter registration requirement at all.) In 2015, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a law enacting Election Day voter registration in Vermont in 2017. In 2014, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a law enacting Election Day voter registration in Hawaii in 2018.

Voter turnout is much higher in states using Election Day registration than in states that do not, even as more states like Illinois, Connecticut and Colorado have adopted it. A 2013 report analyzing turnout in the 2012 United States Presidential election, had SDR states averaging at a turnout of 71%, well above the average voter turn-out rate of 59% for non-SDR states. According to official turnout data report in the 2014 edition of America Goes to the Polls, voter turnout in Election Day registration states has averaged 10–14 percent higher than states that don't have that option. Research suggests that EDR increases turnout between three and fourteen percentage points. A 2004 study summarizes the impact of EDR on voter turnout as “about five percentage points”. In June 2011, the Maine legislature passed a law ending Election Day voter registration, which had been in place since 1973, and abolishing absentee voting during the two business days before an election. The stipulation banning Election Day voter registration was however overturned in a November 2011 citizen referendum ("people's veto") titled Question 1, when Maine voters reinstated Election Day registration with 59% in favor.

Voter registration drives

Main article: Voter registration drive

Political parties and other organizations sometimes hold voter registration drives, organized efforts to register groups of new voters.