Florida: Head of State Elections Supervisors “Very Pleased” With Rollout of new Online Voter Registration System | The Capitolist

A week after Florida rolled out its new online voter registration system, the president of the state association representing election supervisors says she is “very pleased” with with the way the new system has been received and how it has performed. “To my knowledge, we’ve not had any issues. I have tried to keep in touch with the other counties and listen to anything that might be coming through, but I don’t know of anything,” said Taylor County Elections Supervisor Dana Southerland, who also serves as the president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. Florida is the 36th state to offer an online registration system. The system was activated on Oct. 1.

Canada: Ontario e-registration voting tool targeted towards students | The Journal

Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa believes voting in the province has taken a major step towards modernizing with the introduction of an e-registration system. The Ontario Election’s website has implemented an online registration process that incorporates five identity verification steps that will take the user less than 10 minutes to complete. It also features a video tutorial for registering to vote in the general election next spring, as well as registration for individuals  age 16 and 17 interested in being voters in the future. “In just a few easy steps, Ontarians can verify or add their information to the voters list,” Essensa told The Journal via email.  

Florida: Once called too risky, Florida online voter registration finally arrives | Tampa Bay Times

Florida is now the 35th state in the U.S. where people have the option to register to vote or to update their registration online. The system went live Sunday, more than two years after the Legislature passed a bill requiring online registration to take effect by Oct. 1, 2017. … Applicants are required to provide information, such as the date their driver’s license was issued and the last four digits of their Social Security number. The 2018 election for U.S. Senate and governor will be the first in Florida to use online registration. The new option has been years in the making. County election supervisors lobbied for it for years, saying it will save money, improve accuracy of voter rolls and improve convenience for voters. But Gov. Rick Scott’s administration strongly resisted it, citing “potential risks and challenges” and the possibility of cyber-attacks, more than a year before Russians attempted to hack the state’s voting system in the 2016 election.

Florida: Online voter registration set to start in Florida | News Service of Florida

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Thursday that his department is ready to launch the RegisterToVoteFlorida.gov website in compliance with a 2015 law that required online registration to be available by Oct. 1. Detzner, who originally opposed the policy, said the Department of State has been working over the last two years, in cooperation with the 67 supervisors of elections across the state, to “implement an online voter registration website that provides Floridians with a secure and more easily accessible way to register to vote. The right to vote is sacred in our country and I hope that with this new and convenient method, more Floridians will register to vote and engage in the electoral process,” Detzner said in a statement.

Florida: Online voting registration coming in October | USA Today

By October 2017 Florida will join 35 states and the District of Columbia offering an online voter registration option. The new online process will supplement the traditional paper-based system. In place of a paper application, voters will be able to complete and submit their voter registration application via the internet. To be eligible to register to vote online, a person must have either a Florida-issued driver’s license or identification card. The signature that is already on file with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles is the same signature that will be used for the person’s voter registration record.

Guam: Election Commission head: Streamline voter registration | The Guam Daily

Guam residents who register to vote through a volunteer registrar get into the Guam Election Commission’s database faster than applicants using the agency’s online registration service, according to GEC Executive Director Maria Pangelinan. Prospective voters are advised when they click on the online registration link on GEC’s website that the application process requires about 12 minutes, giving the “illusion that the process is entirely automated,” according to Pangelinan. The process, however, is anything but. After applicants fill out the form, which requires them to input either their driver’s license or Guam ID information, the data is then printed onto a paper spreadsheet and sent to the Department of Motor Vehicles for validation.

Florida: Nonprofit group files records request for info about online voter registration | Tampa Bay Times

A non-profit voter rights advocacy group, Access Democracy, founded by two veterans of Democratic politics, Hannah Fried and Alexis Prieur L’Heureux, has requested records related to online voter registration from the state of Florida. “With the implementation deadline just over a week away, we are concerned that Governor Scott and his administration may not be implementing the new system faithfully,” Fried said in a release. The group has asked for emails, audio files, photographs, communication records and other documents related to several aspects of Florida’s online voter registration system, including “technical readiness.”

Iraq: Kurdistan electoral commission vows to fix online register for referendum following complaints | Kurdistan24

People of the Kurdistan Region currently living abroad or traveling on Sep. 25, the day of the referendum on independence, have expressed complaints regarding the list of the requirements needed to register online to vote. The people of the Kurdistan Region are heading toward a historic day, to decide whether to remain a part of Iraq or secede from the rest of the country as a newly-born independent state. Last week, the Independent High Elections and Referendum Commission (IHERC) in the Kurdistan Region launched the website(www.khec17.net) for Diaspora Kurdistanis to register to vote in the referendum. Registration will be open for seven days, starting from September 1 until September 7. The list of the requirements, however, has concerned many Diaspora Kurdistanis as they are asked to register their ration card number, Iraqi national ID card, Citizenship card, and passport as well as sending in proof for some of the documents.

Tennessee: Secretary of state’s office to roll out online voter registration | The Tennessean

The secretary of state’s office is set to officially roll out its new online voter registration system in Tennessee. The new system is already available online but the office will officially announce it next week. The move will put the state’s voter registration into the digital age as Tennessee joins a majority of other states that have already implemented similar systems. “This system meets people where they already are: online,” Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett said. “It will improve accuracy and efficiency for voters and election officials by ensuring there are fewer errors and more accurate voter rolls.”

Florida: New online voter registration system is on pace for an official launch Oct. 1 | Bradenton Herald

Two years in the making, Florida’s new online voter registration system is on pace for an official launch on Oct. 1, as the Legislature directed in the 2015 session. It’s the most significant change in voter registration in years in Florida, and most county election supervisors got their first close-up look at the system Wednesday at their statewide conference in Davenport. Reviews were generally favorable, but growing concerns about cybersecurity were also heard. “It works,” Escambia Supervisor of Elections David Stafford said. Paul Lux of Okaloosa said he was pleased with how the system will function. Stafford, Lux and supervisors Wesley Wilcox in Marion and Chris Chambless in Clay all participated in dry-run tests last month.

Oklahoma: Legislature Slow to Adopt Changes to Ease Voting Laws | Oklahoma Watch

More than 60 legislative bills have been filed since 2015 that seek to expand or create new options for Oklahomans to vote or register to vote. But an Oklahoma Watch review of the legislation considered during the past three sessions shows that most didn’t even get a committee hearing. All but 10 failed to reach the governor’s desk. Among the survivors, the most potentially significant one – approved in 2015 to allow online voter registration – may not take effect for two to three more years, meaning most voters in the 2018 elections will likely encounter few changes that appreciably improve voter convenience or efficiency.

Editorials: Online Voting Won’t Save Democracy – but letting people use the internet to register to vote is a start | Bruce Schneier/The Atlantic

Technology can do a lot more to make our elections more secure and reliable, and to ensure that participation in the democratic process is available to all. There are three parts to this process. First, the voter registration process can improved. The whole process can be streamlined. People should be able to register online, just as they can register for other government services. The voter rolls need to be protected from tampering, as that’s one of the major ways hackers can disrupt the election. Second, the voting process can be significantly improved. Voting machines need to be made more secure. There are a lot of technical details best left to the voting-security experts who can deal with the technical details, but such machines must include a paper ballot that provides a record verifiable by voters. The simplest and most reliable way to do that is already practiced in 37 states: optical-scan paper ballots, marked by the voters, counted by computer but recountable by hand. We need national security standards for voting machines, and funding for states to procure machines that comply with those standards. This means no Internet voting.

Ohio: Online Voter Registration In Place, Ohio Looks To Save Money And Time | WOSU

Monday is the final day that Franklin County residents can register for the May primary. Voters will weigh in on 16 different issues, including for members of City Council and the Board of Education. In 2017, Ohio became the 38th state to implement online voter registration. According to a report by the Pew Research Center, this minor modernization has a number of benefits. According the Pew report, online registration is more accessible, especially for young adults who tend to move more frequently. And because it’s instantly cross checked by records at the BMV, it’s more accurate than the standard paper system.

New Hampshire: State Senate passes bill to allow electronic poll book trial program | Union Leader

The Senate passed a bill to allow towns and cities to participate in an electronic poll book trial program, but rejected a proposal for New Hampshire to join 38 other states with online voter registration. The votes Thursday followed continued debate on election law changes, with legislators taking measured steps to modernize state statutes. A number of communities, including Manchester, have expressed interest in use of an electronic poll book and devices for voter registration rolls and check-in. The trial program must be compliant with existing law, from voter checklists to delivery of data to the Secretary of State in a way that is compatible with the statewide centralized voter registration database.

Mississippi: Early voting, online registration die in committee | Jackson Clarion-Ledger

House bills to allow early voting and online voter registration died without a vote in a Senate committee on Tuesday, frustrating House Elections Chairman Bill Denny. “They didn’t even take them up in committee,” said Denny, R-Jackson, who also authored both bills. “The Senate Elections chairwoman had said they were DOA. To me that’s almost insulting, to have our committee in the House pass these out two years in a row, then have them pass the full House with no more than two to four dissenting votes, and then the Senate committee not even discuss them, to announce that they are DOA before they even get them.”

Luxembourg: Government attempts to boost foreign voting with online registration | Luxemburger Wort

In an effort to attract more foreign residents to vote, Luxembourg’s government is attempting to make the process easier by allowing non-nationals to register on the electoral roll via the internet. The possibility for electronic registration has now been added to the reform of the electoral law approved by the government in the Council of Ministers. The new law will still have to pass through parliament.

Mississippi: Senate likely to kill early voting, online registration | Hattiesburg American

The Senate Elections Committee passed its own version of campaign finance reform on Wednesday and an ‘omnibus’ bill to clean up and tweak Mississippi election code. Senate Elections Chairwoman Sally Doty, R-Brookhaven, said her committee would be open to a House-passed campaign finance bill, but indicated House proposals to allow early voting and online voter registration would be DOA if passed on from the House to the Senate. “There are just too many concerns about online hacking — even allegations from this last election — to look at (online registration) this year,” Doty said of a measure House Elections approved to allow first-time voters to register online. Last year, the Legislature approved people changing their registration online after they move, but the Senate stripped out first-time registration online.

Mississippi: Bills would ease early voting and online voter registration | Associated Press

Proposals to expand access to early voting and to create online registration for first-time voters are advancing at the Mississippi Capitol. So is a plan that could eventually simplify the process of restoring voting rights for people who served time for nonviolent felonies. All three bills passed the House Elections Committee on Monday and move to the full House for more debate. House Bill 228 would allow no-excuses in-person early voting, starting 14 days before an election. Current law only lets people vote early if they will be out of town Election Day.

New York: Early voting pushed by Cuomo as State of State tour kicks off | Albany Times Union

In an attempt to remove barriers to voting, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will propose the state adopt plans for early voting. The governor said the move would make voting easier by requiring counties to provide at least one day of polling during the 12 days leading up to an election. His proposal also included plans for automatic voter registration and same day registration. … Cuomo’s early voting proposal is one of several proposals the governor has made in advance of his State of the State addresses that he will conduct in various locations beginning Monday.

Ohio: Online voter registration to start in January | Journal-News

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has a New Year’s resolution he wants to see Ohioans make: register online to vote. And that can goal can be completed as soon as the Times Square Ball completes its New Year’s Eve descent. “It’s another positive step in trying to improve elections in America,” said Husted. “So when it strikes midnight, raise your glass in champagne, give a toast and register to vote.” Lawmakers approved Senate Bill 63 this past summer, which authorizes the state to implement online voter registration, and it will be live at midnight on Jan. 1 on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website. “It eliminates another excuse for not voting,” he said. “Nobody can say it’s too hard. You don’t have to leave home to participate in Ohio democracy now.”

Ohio: Online voter registration coming to Ohio | Dayton Daily News

Ohioans can register to vote online starting Jan. 1, an effort that could save the state millions of dollars, according to Secretary of State Jon Husted. Currently 31 states and Washington, D.C., allow voters to register online. “Raise a glass of champagne, offer a toast, get online and register to vote,” Husted said in a statement Tuesday. Gov. John Kasich signed Senate Bill 63, allowing online registration, back in June, but it is just now taking effect in time for the upcoming local elections in 2017. The decision was made not to have the law take effect before the 2016 presidential election. “The world is moving online,” state Sen. Bill Beagle, R-Tipp City, said on Tuesday. “More and more people look to do as much of their business online as they can because it’s convenient.”

Florida: State moves forward with online voter registration | News Service of Florida

Work remains on pace to allow online voter registration in Florida by next October, state elections officials told lawmakers Tuesday. “We did have a little bit of a hiatus with our meetings. Obviously, we were trying to get through the election, but we have resumed and will continue full steam ahead,” Maria Matthews, director of the state Division of Elections, told members of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee. Also Tuesday, Secretary of State Ken Detzner said the state’s election database and voting systems remained secured throughout 2016.

West Virginia: Cabell County clerk ordered to honor online registrations | Charleston Gazette-Mail

A federal judge in Huntington on Tuesday sided with lawyers from West Virginia’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and ordered the Cabell County clerk to permit online voter registration within the county. Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers found that by not honoring the state’s electronic voter registration system, Cabell Clerk Karen Cole is violating the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Residents in every other West Virginia county but Cabell have been able to successfully use the electronic system, ACLU lawyers wrote in the lawsuit they filed last week. Following the ruling, Cole said she would immediately begin registering voters who used the online system. Cole will mail those people voter registration cards and letters stating they don’t have to take any additional steps to be able to vote Nov. 8.

West Virginia: ACLU files lawsuit over online voter registration in Cabell County | Charleston Gazette-Mail

The West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against Cabell County Clerk Karen Cole, claiming her refusal to recognize and permit online voter registration within the county violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Residents in every other West Virginia county but Cabell, the lawsuit states, are able to successfully use the electronic voter registration system through the Secretary of State’s website. And Cabell is one of the top five counties in the state where prospective voters have used the online system, according to the complaint, which was also filed by the national ACLU’s Voting Rights Project and Charleston lawyer Anthony Majestro. The organizations filed the complaint, which seeks class-action status, on behalf of Allison Mullins, who recently moved to Cabell County to attend Marshall University. Mullins used the Secretary of State’s website to update her voter registration information prior to the Oct. 18 deadline, the lawsuit states. Her “information was not and will not be processed by Defendant Cole without action from this Court,” her lawyers wrote.

United Kingdom: Plans to extend electronic registration to Northern Ireland | BBC

Plans have been announced to allow voters in Northern Ireland to register electronically for elections. Under the proposals, online registration would be rolled out by the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland by 2019. The plans are contained in a joint consultation by the Northern Ireland Office and the Electoral Office. Legislation to introduce electronic registration will be presented to parliament next month.

Georgia: Technology error rejected some Georgia voter registration applications | Atlanta Journal Constitution

Any Georgian who tried to register to vote online using his or her driver’s license number between Friday evening and midday Monday is being encouraged to re-register, after state officials found a problem over that weekend that likely rejected many of the applications. The problem originated in the state Department of Driver Services, during an unsuccessful update at 6:30 p.m. Friday to the agency’s online security certificate. The failure caused an error that blocked instant verification of electronic voter registration applications for people using their driver’s license number to confirm their identity. Election officials with the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office discovered the problem Monday morning, and the system was back online by 12:30 p.m. that afternoon, officials said. Officials could not say how many people were affected by the outage. However, officials with the Secretary of State’s Office said they saw a spike that same weekend in requests for printed paper registration applications.

Pennsylvania: Wolf’s administration increases voter registration options | York Dispatch

When Gov. Tom Wolf took office, Pennsylvania was already behind many states in allowing online voter registration, but the state is now an early adopter of a texting service designed to increase registration awareness. Wolf often cited a need for more accessible voter registration during his campaign for office, and about seven months into his first term as governor, Pennsylvania became the 23rd state to allow online registration, according to Secretary of State Pedro Cortes. Cortes said he had been pushing for online voter registration when he served under previous Gov. Ed Rendell because it’s “more convenient and accessible.” Last week, online voter registration services surpassed 500,000 users in the state, he said.

National: New Voting Technologies Create Need for Improved Infrastructure | StateTech Magazine

The days of hanging chads might be over, but new Election Day challenges have arisen to fill the void. Electronic voting machines, online voter registration portals and optical scanning devices place significant strain on data center operations. States, counties and cities must now ensure they have the infrastructure necessary to support these increasingly popular technologies — especially with the 2016 presidential election just over the horizon. But even though all states face the same Nov. 8 deadline for Election Day improvements, the varied adoption of voting innovations means no two states have the same infrastructure-upgrade needs.

National: Voter registration goes digital | Washington Examiner

The days of filling out a form and using snail mail to register to vote are just about over. Voters now can register to vote online in 31 states. Another seven have passed legislation to do so and are establishing their systems. More are expected to follow. States have done it for economic reasons — going paperless is that much cheaper — as well as to keep up with the digital world. It may have an additional benefit: reducing the tension around voter access issues, such as voter ID laws. Online databases make it vastly easier for states to ensure the accuracy of their voter rolls. “Online registration has been a real boon in terms of keeping the voter roles clean,” said Wendy Underhill, program director for the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.

Hawaii: State hopeful online registration will boost voter turnout | Hawaii News Now

The deadline to register for the primary election on Aug. 13 is next Thursday. And to get more people signed up, the state will be hosting registration events statewide. “We’ll be having them statewide — three on the Big Island, one on Maui, one on Kauai and one here on O’ahu,” said Scott Nago, the state’s chief election officer. The drive, which will include new TV ads, is aimed at changing Hawaii’s last-in-the-nation ranking for voter turnout. And voting officials say they’re hopeful this year, not least of which because a new online registration system has already resulted in more residents signed up.