Oregon is on track to sign up more than 200,000 new voters in the first seven months of the state’s automatic voter registration system, the Secretary of State announced Friday. Most of those voters — approximately 120,000 — will be registered through the second phase of the program, in which the Secretary of State’s office identified eligible voters who visited the DMV in 2014 and 2015. County clerks are now registering those people to vote. Under the first phase of the law, the Secretary of State’s office and county clerks were already registering people who visited the DMV this year on a rolling basis.
“It is clear that Oregon Motor Voter is changing the nature of voter registration in Oregon as we know it,” Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins said in a statement Friday. “With completion of the second and final phase of implementation for the program, I’m looking forward to Oregon Motor Voter becoming the norm for Oregonians.”
Lawmakers passed the automatic voter registration law in 2015, and it took effect in January. The law, which is the first of its kind in the nation, was a top priority for Gov. Kate Brown going back to when she was secretary of state. Under the law, the state registers people who are eligible vote after they obtain or renew their driver’s licenses, permits or identification cards at the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division. California, West Virginia and Vermont have since passed automatic voter registration laws, and lawmakers in Illinois sent a bill to their governor in mid-June.
Full Article: Oregon expects to automatically register more than 200,000 new voters ahead of November election | OregonLive.com.