With AFSCME's support and blessing, beginning today (March 1) Oregonians can register to vote online, or update their current voter registration status.
The Oregon Secretary of State's Elections Division has launched the new system, making Oregon the fourth state to give its residents the option of registering to vote online. (Arizona, Washington and Kansas beat Oregon to the punch.) Three other states (Colorado, Louisiana and Indiana) will follow suit this year, and two more (California and Utah) are developing online voter registration procedures.
There is one "catch," so to speak. In order to register to vote online, you must already be in the Oregon DMV system — that is, you must either hold a state driver's license, learner's permit or a DMV-issued state identification card. That's because the DMV already has a person's electronic signature, and the new online voter registration law requires the Elections Division to authenticate signatures through the DMV's database.
"We anticipate this will be an invaluable tool in our push to get as many AFSCME members registered to vote as possible," says Council 75 Political Coordinator Joe Baessler, who covers election-related issues for the union. "This will be great for rural Oregon, where people are simply spread out geographically, and it will help us with younger members who are increasingly 'wired' and used to doing more and more on the Internet."
In addition to making it easier to register to vote (or change your name, or your address, or your party affiliation, etc.), the new system should also save the state money, a huge benefit as Oregon struggles to balance its state budget.
For example, Arizona — the first state to offer online voter registration in 2002 — now sees 70 percent of its new voter registrations done online. In Maricopa County (the Phoenix area), registration costs have dropped from 83 cents per paper transaction to 3 cents per online transaction. Washington state estimates its per registration cost has dropped from $1.55 each for paper registrations to 45 cents each for the electronic form. An official at the Secretary of State's office said they don't have a similar kind of number for Oregon at present, but do expect costs to go down as paper transactions decrease.
You can click here to go to the state's new online registration site.
