Modernizing voter registration with automatic voter registration

Best practices for expanding automatic voter registration and supporting accurate voting rolls.

We are excited about all the states that are modernizing their voter registration because people often decide they want to vote only when they see what’s on the ballot—too late to register and vote.

One of the solutions is Motor Voter programs that help those eligible register or update their voter registration at places during other everyday interactions with government services. It’s called automatic (or automated) registration. As of 2022, 22 states and Washington, DC have adopted automatic voter registration and we’ve been there to support implementation.

We work with the state elections office and the DMV to make sure the forms and letters are clear and written in plain language. And we test them with voters. We have even tested the voter registration portion of a new online driver’s license application in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

All this work makes a difference in the number of people who are ready to vote. After Oregon became the first state to implement automatic voter registration, they added 375,000 new voters in the first 18 months, increasing the voter registration rate by 10 points, to 86%. Better, many of those voters turnout to vote, as shown in this analysis from FiveThirtyEight – What happened when 2.2 million people were registered to vote.

Best practices for automatic voter registration show the impact of using plain language and good forms design

Download  Voter registration modernization design best practices (PDF)

Making forms easier to use

Of course, the form should be laid out clearly and written in clear language. You will also want to think about ways to simplify the form as much as you can:

  • Reduce the number of questions to the essentials. Every question slows down the customer and makes the whole transaction take longer.
  • Word all questions, answer sets,  and instructions in a way that current and potential voters understand. It makes their answers more accurate, and they take less time completing the transaction
  • Be sure that valid reasons to opt-out are clear so that anyone who should not register at the DMV either because they are not eligible or need to have their address protection gets the message.
  • Present eligibility criteria as a list, not a series of questions. People are more likely to understand that they have to meet all the criteria.
  • Present legal declarations as clearly as possible.  Use bullets so they are easier to scan.

Making the whole project a success

We have also had an opportunity to see some of the best practices that make the overall project a success.

  • Get everyone in the room. Good communication among all the stakeholders is critical. That includes all the state agencies, local elections offices, and community advocates.
  • Foster good relationships between DMV and SOS/BOE. Make sure their legal teams agree and that the project managers communicate regularly.
  • Make data metrics collection part of the project early. Collect statistics on the current system, so you can quickly see the impact of the updates.
  • Design communication with voters after the visit to the DMV that invites them to vote in the next election.
  • Test the entire process carefully before launch.   Be sure the program doesn’t get in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
  • Test the design with users  – both clerks and voters. Take their experience seriously to identify potential problems.

To make sure the launch and beyond go smoothly:

  • Work with local election officials so they can answer voters’ (and their own) questions accurately.
  • There’s a transaction audit trail on both the DMV and SOS systems, right!? You can’t solve problems without it.
  • Keep up the communication with project partners, stakeholders, and everyone involved in making the project a success.