Secure Automatic Voter Registration
Increasing integrity without sacrificing access
The Gap
Millions of eligible Americans aren’t registered to vote — or are registered at old addresses. Over 90% of Americans have a driver’s license or ID, and their information (including citizenship) is already verified at the DMV. But DMV voter registration is often clunky, slow, and one-size-fits-all; it asks everyone the same questions, even if they’re already registered or not eligible.
The Solution
Secure Automatic Voter Registration (Secure AVR) seamlessly uses data customers already provide as part of their DMV license or ID transaction to register eligible voters, or update their address or name if already registered. People can opt-out of registration post-transaction.
State of Play
The following states have some form of automatic voter registration:
How the Policy Works
During most driver’s license transactions, customers provide their name, DOB, address, and proof of citizenship to the DMV. With Secure AVR, election officials use that data to register eligible individuals to vote, or update their voting address. Eligible voters get a form in the mail that allows them to opt-out of registration. Ineligible customers are off-ramped.
Secure AVR is significantly more effective than Partial AVR, where the customer can decline voter registration during the DMV transaction. Allowing people to decline during the transaction leads to roughly half of eligible people declining registration. By contrast, with Secure AVR, 1% of people send back the mailer to decline registration. Secure AVR also cuts approximately 90 seconds from each DMV transaction.
Secure AVR requires legislation and strong implementation support.
Why Responsive Gov Cares
Secure AVR keeps voter rolls up to date, facilitates participation, filters out ineligible voters, eases paperwork burdens, speeds up DMV transactions, and makes election administration much more efficient.
News and Research
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