Key Facts About Pre-registration
Key Facts about Pre-Registration
- Pre-registration should help about 9 voters per precinct (about 20,000 statewide per year) – while reducing costly last-minute registrations that come in just before the deadline.
- Pre-registrants should be able to use the same form as everyone else. Clerks should be able to enter pre-registrants in the Central Voter Registry, the same as everyone else, and forget about them. The process of making pre-registrants active voters on their 18th birthday is automatic in Rhode Island, Hawaii, Oregon, Florida and many other states, and should be automatic here, too.
- About half of all Massachusetts teens do not move away to college. (Of course, even those who do may pre-register and then vote absentee).
- Pre-registration makes it much easier for schools and youth groups to conduct voter registration drives (but creates no obligations on any school or organization).
