Voter Registration

North and South

The political movements for voter registration in the north and the south had different motivations. In the north, voter registration was instituted to prevent voter fraud and the corrupt practices of the urban political machines. It was also an important part of a larger set of progressive governmental and electoral reforms that included the civil service, direct primaries, and the secret ballot (also known as the Australian ballot, after the country where it originated). In the south, registration was racially driven and was part of a system that included the white primary, literacy tests, and the poll tax. The U.S. Constitution did not address voter eligibility requirements. Consequently, these varied from state to state, but over time uniform requirements for eligibility concerning race, sex, economic status, and age were adopted (the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Sixth amendments). Yet, voter registration practices continued to diverge due to the administrative needs and political cultures of the individual states.

The majority of the states require voters to register from 10 to 30 days prior to an election, by mail or in person. However, seven states—Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming—have Election Day registration, also known as same-day registration, which allows eligible citizens to register and vote on Election Day. North Dakota, as the only state that does not have voter registration, relies on identification documents or sworn affidavits. The process of keeping voter registration lists up-to-date, which is particularly important for their accuracy, is called voter registration list maintenance. This process includes correcting records with name spelling, date of birth, or address mistakes, updating addresses of voters who moved within the same jurisdiction, removing duplicate records (for example, multiple records that point to a unique voter), removing voters who moved outside of a jurisdiction, died, or are prevented from voting by state law (for example, convicted felons in some states). The process of removal of people from voter registration lists is called a purge.

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