What's the purpose of Registration Deadlines in the Digital Age?

[Nyvin]

Why exactly do we still have registration deadlines if registration can be done entirely online?    

The entire purpose of registration deadlines back in the day was for giving postal services time to get the paperwork to the proper offices, and give the clerks time to confirm all the data received, and then give them time to notify the voter he/she is registered....all before the person went to vote at the ballot box on election day obviously.

Nowadays a solid majority of registrations are done electronically via the web (you can even go to the DMV and find computer kiosk to register to vote online).    The data is all confirmed in a matter of seconds and the registration has no travel time whatsoever.

So getting back to the original point, what's the purpose of registration deadlines in the digital age?   Are they a completely redundant concept?

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

At least in Michigan, signing in to vote is still done on paper, so you'd have to keep at least a minimal gap, but it seems that the 30 day period we have now is excessive, given what you've pointed out.

[muon2]

One problem can be incompatibility of computer systems. When IL first went to online registration, no one had determined if data could move from the DMV to the Board of Elections. It turned out that it could not and for the first year it took as much as three weeks to confirm a voter registration. Now it can happen within minutes but that came at some cost to purchase appropriate hardware and software.

The second problem is that counties still have paper voter lists in the polling places when voter check in. They need to be printed and distributed to the polling places. That takes a few weeks, and the registration deadline was set to accommodate that. Counties can switch to electronic check in, but the hardware is quite expensive. Even now some of the large counties may only have one device per large polling place to help voters who aren't on the printed list. Small rural counties may not have any devices yet due to budget constraints.

The issue of county-based elections and their different budget resources almost resulted in election day voter registration being blocked by the federal courts in IL. The law only required EDR at all polling places in counties over 100 K, but only at the county seat for small counties. The federal judge ruled that this violated equal protection since large counties had easier access and their votes could count more. The federal appeals court stayed the order until after the election, but the case is still pending.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Where I live the polling station maintains a paper book of all the people who are registered to vote in that precinct. They look you up against that when you come in.

[Hatman 🍁]

Preventing blacks and poors from voting of course.

The US is one of the few western democracies that doesn't have same day registration.

[muon2]

Preventing blacks and poors from voting of course.

The US is one of the few western democracies that doesn't have same day registration.

IL has same day registration and there are still paper books of voters for each polling place. It didn't eliminate the need for judges to check people off the paper list and record that they had voted. Many of those precincts include electronic poll books, but there is still a paper backup.

Does every other western democracy now have tablets or the equivalent in every polling place to record voters as they come in? The only foreign election I've observed was in Germany in 2002 and everything was on paper then.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Muon, were you an overseas elections observer? Been considering it.

[muon2]

Muon, were you an overseas elections observer? Been considering it.

Not formally. I was in Germany at the time, and because of my position I was invited to observe in the town in which I was staying.

[Bismarck]

It's just to prevent Election Day hassles for poll workers. In Indiana you can register until the day early voting starts.