Beginning next month, Californians for the first time will be able to use the Internet to register to vote, giving them about six weeks of online access to register in time to participate in the Nov. 6 presidential election.
In an advisory sent late Wednesday, the office of Secretary of State Debra Bowen informed the state’s 58 county elections officers that the California Online Voter Registration System is in its final stages of testing and will become operational in early September. Software upgrades are scheduled to be electronically transmitted to the counties Friday, with online training for local officials to be conducted next week.
“It’s really huge,” said Secretary of State Debra Bowen. “I think it will be extremely popular and am very hopeful it will increase voter registration.”
For about the last year, the state has offered a web-based registration process — but the last step is cumbersome. The voter must print, sign and mail the registration form that he or she filled out.
The new system will be what Bowen called “a one-click process.”
“That’s fantastic news for Californians,” said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. “I think this will be very popular among eligible voters. I think it will facilitate potentially hundreds of thousands of users.”
Gov. Jerry Brown last fall signed a law authorizing the development of the system, which involves the secretary of state and the Department of Motor Vehicles coordinating their databases in a way that will allow elections officials to authenticate a new registrant’s identity and obtain a digitized copy of his or her signature.
The law gave Bowen as much time as necessary to perfect the system, and she said her office has made its development a top priority. “I really wanted to get this done before the presidential election,” she said.
The deadline to register to vote — on paper or online — to cast a ballot in November is Oct. 22.
Ventura County Clerk-Recorder Mark Lunn, the county’s chief elections official, said his office stands ready to implement online registration. “I’m excited about it. It’s something we need,” he said. “I’m pretty confident this will be a seamless thing.”
The system will allow a user to first check off an authorization to allow the Department of Motor Vehicles to release his or her signature to elections officials and then click “send.”
“This is the final step — that electronic transfer of data,” said Shannon Velayas, spokeswoman for Bowen. She noted that online registration will save counties staff time and money by eliminating the need to input data from paper forms, and also will eliminate the possibility of data-entry error or mistakes in reading a registrant’s handwriting.
Under a requirement of the federal Help America Vote Act, all new voters are assigned a unique identification number — either their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Using that information and the applicant’s date of birth, elections officials will be able to use DMV data to confirm the authenticity of a registrant.
Elections officials also will receive a digitized signature, which will be used to verify a voter’s identity. All voters when they cast ballots must either sign a registry at their polling place or the envelope of their vote-by-mail ballot.
Lunn, a former Highway Patrol officer, said he is satisfied that the system ensures that only qualified voters will be able to register online. “I look at it from a cop’s perspective,” he said.
A number of other states already allow for online registration, said Alexander, of the California Voter Foundation. She noted there have been no reports of problems — other than demand being so high at the close of the registration period that systems have crashed from overuse.
The names of those who register online will be immediately added to the voter roll, which will reduce the need for provisional ballots on Election Day when a newly registered voter’s name has not yet been added to the list provided to poll workers, Alexander said.
Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, was the author of the bill authorizing the system that Brown signed last year. On Thursday, he said he is pleased that Bowen will be able to put it place in time for this year’s election.
“If we have the opportunity to use technology to register to vote, that’s something we ought to do,” he said. “We want to find every which way to make it easier for people to participate and vote.”
Bowen said her office will undertake an extensive public awareness campaign once the system becomes operational, but believes that candidates, campaigns and the public at large will be eager to spread the word.
“We hope the news will go viral,” she said. “I think an awareness campaign will take care of itself.”
Bowen said she looks forward to the day when she will be able to talk to a high school class about voter registration and give them a link they can use to register.
“It’s a lot more efficient,” she said, “than sending someone out with a stack of registration cards and an ironing board.”
