Voter Registration:
An International Perspective
Eve RobertRight to Vote Initiative

Abstract
The United States is one of the few democracies in the world where the government does
not take any responsibility in registering its citizens. This one-of-a-kind, self-initiatedvoter registration process acts as a major barrier to voter turnout and leads to ofteninaccurate voter rolls.
In contrast, the international norm is a process of government-mandated automatic voter
registration of every citizen who reaches voting age. This report explores how othermajor well-established democracies (Canada, Australia, Sweden, Italy, New Zealand andothers) concretely manage to build comprehensive, inclusive, accurate voting rolls thatleave no voters behind while ensuring a high level of privacy. As it turns out, many ofthese “best practices”, could easily be implemented in the U.S. context to modernize ourvoter registration system.
This report takes a closer look at youth voter registration practices. Young voters are
difficult to register; yet as first-time voters, their political participation is particularly
crucial. Various strategies, in the U.S. and abroad, have been successfully implemented
to target this particular segment of the population. The best approach actually seems to be
the creation of a provisional list (16-year-old pre-registration), combined with highschool-based registration drives and birthday card programs for 17 and 18 year olds.

1Introduction
The United States ranks 140 out of 163 countries based on turnout of the voting age
population since 1990, according to experts who study elections abroad.1 The voter
registration system can be considered partly responsible for this low voter turnout. In
2006, 32.43% of citizens 18 and older were unregistered according to the U.S. Census
Bureau.2 And yet, once registered, people are much more likely to vote: in 2004, the U.S.
Census Bureau reported participation rates of more than 85 percent of registered voters.
One can thus consider our voter registration system responsible for leaving so many
citizens behind. In 2001, a commission chaired by Jimmy Carter and Gerald Fordconcluded, “The registration laws in force throughout the United States are among theworld’s most demanding … [and are ] one reason why voter turnout in the United Statesis near the bottom of the developed world.”3
A Self-Initiated System
The United States is one of the few democracies in the world where the government does
not take any responsibility for registering its citizens (voters must take the initiative andregister themselves to vote), while the international norm is a process of governmentmandated automatic voter registration of every citizen who reaches voting age. As aconsequence of this opt-in, self-initiated system, the U.S. voter rolls are not ascomprehensive and inclusive as they should be. In most western democracies where thegovernment takes the onus of registering voters, the registration rates are much higher(i.e. about 90% in Canada, 91% in Indonesia, 93% in France, and up to 97% in Japan).
Many academics have highlighted that this state-initiated, automatic, approach to voter
registration serves to enhance inclusion, particularly of those with special needs (i.e.
voters in hospitals and prisons, disabled people, the homeless, the poor, the illiterate,etc.). 4 For such people, a system that depends on self-registration may well have a
repressive effect on their willingness or capacity to be included on the list of eligible
voters. One could add that our voter’s lists are not as clean and accurate as they could be,either, as the frequent polemics about alleged voter registration “fraud” involving
ACORN during the 2008 presidential election highlights.5

1

Voter turnout since 1945: a global report. International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance,
2002
2
U.S. Census Bureau, Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2006,
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-557.pdf
3Carter and Ford: National Election Commission, Report of the Task Force on the Federal Election
System, chapter 2 “Voter Registration” http://www.tcf.org/publications/electionreform/99_full_report.pdf
4i.e. Loyola Law Professor Rick Hasen, former Federal Election Assistance Commission Chairwoman
Rosemary E. Rodriguez have endorsed the idea. It has also received favorable mention from Ohio State
Law Professor Dan Tokaji.
5

On this topic, see Rob Richie and Adam Fogel’s article :http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/10/30/richieed_1030.html

2

The Voter Roll: An Essential Democratic Feature
According to the ACE project, voter registration is one of the more costly, timeconsuming, complex, but also essential aspects of the electoral process. 6 Indeed, clean
and complete voter rolls are an vital tool in every democracy: by confirming that citizens
have met all the eligibility requirements and that each eligible citizen is registered to voteonce and only once, the voter registration process ensures the validity of the vote andhelps to confer legitimacy on the electoral process. The voter list may also be used in
voter education and may be provided to political parties and candidates to help them intheir campaigns.7
1. Periodic Enumerations
To implement a more inclusive voter registration process, some states conduct door-todoor enumerations, with election officials contacting each household in person. Most of
the time, enumerations are conducted during the campaign period, and electoraladministrators do not intend to maintain or update the list for future use. The enumeration
process is repeated each time an election is called.
This method was traditionally used by Canada and Australia. Enumeration turned out tobe especially labor-intensive. For example, in their 1998 elections, Canada hired 110,000
enumerators. The cost is high because several visitations are necessary for thoseinitially missed or not at home, even though at some point the onus shifts to the absent
individual to take some minor steps to become registered. The process is also highly
time-consuming, and in Canada, the campaign period had to be extended to allow for
development of the voter rolls. The enumeration period is timed to provide an up-to-dateroll for federal elections, but this timing does not necessarily suit the state and local
election cycles, leading to costly duplication in the registration processes. For all thesereasons, the enumeration method tends to be an extremely costly8 and inefficient
process.9
Having the registration undertaken just before the election can potentially produce a highlevel of enrollment (for instance in Canada, 98% of voters were registered), and theinformation compiled is often accurate and up-to-date – the enumeration captures those
who have changed residence as well as new citizens and the newly age eligible. The
timely nature of post-writ enumeration also means that the false listing of those who hademigrated or passed away was kept to a minimum. On the other hand, in many countries
where enumeration is still practiced, such as Indonesia, Albania, India, Pakistan, and6

Voter registration activities consume an average of 15.7-percent of Electoral Management Bodies budgets
according to the Global Survey on the Cost of Registration and Elections (CORE) survey, conducted by
ACE in 2003, surveyed 178 Election Management Bodies (EMB) around the world
7“An overview of voter registration”, ACE Project Network, http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/vr/vr10
8The cost of the final door-to-door enumeration, which was conducted before the 1997 general election
was $71.4 million.
9“From enumeration to the National Register of Electors, an account and an evaluation”, Jerome H.
Black, IRPP, Choices august 2003

3

Bangladesh, this “rushed” job leads to compromises in quality, giving rise to accuracy
and completeness problems.10 Also, as registration takes place during the campaign, thequality of the list sometimes becomes itself an important election issue, providing
opposition parties with an opportunity to criticize the government and call into question
the legitimacy of the rolls. An interesting practice that helps avoid that kind of
appearance of political manipulation is a bi-partisan approach to the enumeration, as
formerly practiced in Canada: in urban areas, enumerators worked by pairs, each being
appointed on the recommendation of a specific party. Then, the preliminary lists wererevised under the same bipartisan approach in order to correct the inaccuracies oromissions that may have occurred.11
Because of these political disadvantages, the increasingly mobile lifestyle of citizens andgrowing safety concerns for canvassers, both Canada (1996) and Australia (1998) turned
their traditional enumeration-based registration system to continuous list systems. Veryfew democracies still use periodic enumerations today, the most notable case being theUnited Kingdom, where to this day each head of household has to register everyone
living in that home during the annual electoral census. The electoral register in the U.K.
is maintained on a continuous basis, allowing citizens to modify their personal datamonthly without waiting for the annual census.12
The U.K. government has recently announced a reform to shift to individual voter
registration for the autumn 2010 canvas (on a voluntary basis) and the 2015 canvas (on acompulsory basis). More importantly, the reform proposed by the government would
introduce a data-sharing partnership feature in the U.K. voter registration system byallowing electoral registration officers to obtain relevant and restricted data from publicauthorities, such as the Revenue and Customs administration and the Department ofWork and Pension. The government is casting this reform as a way to “provide greater
protection against voter fraud,” but also as a way to efficiently register the three million
people that currently slip through the cracks of the enumeration system.13
With all its flaws, the periodic list system may be particularly appropriate in specificcases: where infrastructure is lacking to maintain a continuous list, where population
mobility is high, or where there is opposition to the maintenance of lists of citizens by thegovernment. Also, countries with other registration system sometimes conduct targeteddoor-to-door enumerations to complement their registration program and boost theregistration rates in high-mobility areas. An analysis of registration rates in Canada,
which has used a data-partnership automatic system since 1998, highlights that some
information, notably changes of addresses, are not 100% captured by the government
agencies. Students and highly mobile citizens have a much higher probability not to beregistered at their current address. Other categories of citizens likely to slip between thecracks include people in hospitals or extended health-care facilities, if lists of residents
10

ACE project network“From enumeration to the National Register of Electors, an account and an evaluation”, Jerome H.
Black, IRPP, Choices august 2003
12
The Representation of the People Act of 2000 allows for continuously updated voter rolls.
13
Individual voter registration to replace household surveys, The Telegraph, 03/03/09.
11

4

are not provided and homeless persons. To remedy these issues, Elections Canada
sometimes conducts door-to-door registration campaigns in selected neighborhoods, suchas new subdivisions, student residences, or areas with highly mobile residents. The target
areas for these additional registration efforts are identified through an analysis of the
National Register of Electors to compile a list of residents who have moved frequently inthe past. In-person enumeration also includes areas where the voter rolls tend to be oflower quality. In 2004, for instance, officials visited 780,000 more addresses, completed
74,000 more revision forms, and left 140,000 more forms for residents who weren't athome than in 2000.14 This process does not seem to be very cost-efficient, since the pricetag was $5 million in 2004.
2. Increasing the Convenience of the Process
Election-Day Registration
Election Day Registration can be implemented in a self-initiated system as a way toincrease the registration rates thanks to a more convenient process for the voter. It canalso be implemented as a part of a state-initiated system designed to ensure that no one
slips through the cracks (there are various reasons why one could be omitted from thevoters lists in an automatic system: voters may be ill or on a trip during the registration
period, they may have recently moved or recently satisfied eligibility requirements).
Election Day Registration (EDR), also called “same day registration,” allows eligible
voters to register and cast a ballot on Election Day. In the United States, nine statescurrently have EDR (Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Idaho, New Hampshire, Wyoming,
Montana, Iowa, and North Carolina).15
Various studies have revealed that EDR states have had higher voter turnout than nonEDR states for over 25 years.16 Voter registration deadlines close before the media andthe public fully focuses on elections: the final weeks of a campaign often are politicallydecisive. In addition, EDR is time saving because voters can do all the paperwork on thesame day. This process enables active people—women who have to look after theirchildren, young people, geographically mobile people or persons with disabilities—toregister more conveniently. Some opponents argue that EDR could facilitate voter
impersonation, but in reality, “EDR may deter voter fraud, since the registration process
is conducted under the eye of the voting station official and requires a variety of legal
documents.”17
14Report of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada on the 38th general election, Elections Canada,
http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=gen&document=part1_div1&dir=rep/re2/sta2004&lang=e&te
xtonly=false
15
Election Day Registration: Best Practices, an implementation guide. Regina M. Eaton, Cristina Vasile,
DEMOS
http://www.demos.org/publication.cfm?currentpublicationID=8FCFEFB2-3FF4-6C8255E0B61E47C0A787
16
Demos In the 2004 American presidential election, average turnout in the EDR states was 12% higher
than that of non-EDR states (63,2% in non-EDR States, versus 75,1% in EDR States)
17
Demos Election Day Registration Fact Sheet

5

Proof of residence and proof of identity are always required, but the list of accepted
identification varies depending on state. In Canada and in several US states (notablyIowa), voters can sign an affidavit affirming their identity or a fellow voter can vouch forthem if they do not have the proper identification.18 This process allows people who haverecently moved and thus have no proof of residence to cast a ballot. In the U.S., the Help
America Vote Act (HAVA) requires states to collect information from voters that could
be used to crosscheck their identity and residency with other state databases. For
example, voter rolls must be linked to the driver’s license database. In somestates/countries, additional security provisions have been implemented: the election
authority may keep a separate list of people who register on Election Day. Later, politicalparties may review the list of these voters.
In Montana, Election Day Registration cannot be completed at the polling location, but
only in county offices or courthouses (only places where the voter registration database isavailable) where officials say they can perform necessary checks to make sure a voter has
not cast a ballot previously or has been issued an absentee ballot in another part of thestate. According to DEMOS, the incremental cost of implementing EDR in new locationsin 2004 was a maximum of $250 per precinct. It is not more costly to register people on
Election Day at the polls than in the weeks before an election at a registration office.
EDR allows local election offices to save money on pre-election staffing. Per-capita
election administration costs in major cities using EDR—including Minneapolis and
Milwaukee—are approximately $3.50 per voting-age person.19 The implementation of
EDR in California would cost $6 million annually (and no net cost to counties),
according to several estimates.20
Register By Mail/On-line Registration
An increasing number of countries are allowing mail-in voter registration—including
Germany, Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The mail-in registration processes are quite similar in these countries: registration forms
are available online or/and in public service agencies and can be returned by mail to theBoard of Elections. According to Elections Australia, the return rate is higher when theform is pre-addressed and postage is pre-paid. In Australia, it is possible to fax thecompleted and signed form, and even to scan it and send it by e-mail.
New technologies, notably the Internet, also offer interesting opportunities for voter
registration systems. Two U.S. States, Arizona (since 2003) and Washington State (since2007), allow citizens to register to vote or transfer a registration to a new address via
18

Election Day Registration in Iowa, Iowa Secretary of State,
http://www.yawp.com/ican/ICANVote/EDR_Q_A.pdf, Elections Canada website:
http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=ele&dir=ids&document=index&lang=e&textonly=false#three
19
In comparison, California counties spend between $3 and $4 per voting-age person to run elections
20
DEMOS report “California Votes: the promise of EDR”
http://archive.demos.org/pubs/california_votes.pdf
Fiscal impact note for proposition 52 (EDR) in California, as reported by the League of Women Voters(http://ca.lwv.org/lwvc/edfund/elections/2002nov/id/prop52.html)-

6Internet. The applicant is required to enter his or her driver’s license or state ID card
number, which is used as a signature. To ensure the security of the process, a randomly
generated security number is presented to each user to make it more difficult for an
automated hacking program to fraudulently fill out voter registration applications via thewebsite. The implementation of on-line registration in Washington State is too recent tobe assessed, but Arizona reports a significant success with online voter registration: 70%of all registrations are received using Internet, and registration increased by 9.5
percentage-points in the two years since the on-line registration program was instituted.21
This experience has proved that on-line voter registration is technologically feasible,
secure and efficient. Other states, notably Oregon, Indiana and California, are considering
implementing similar systems.
International examples also demonstrate the usefulness of online voter registration
systems. Elections New Zealand provides a direct and interactive on-line voter
registration system since 2005. Voters can register on-line (even for first registrations)and can review and edit their registration information – the voter roll is available on
Elections New Zealand website. Some other countries (Canada, Denmark, Australia,
Britain) are looking into implementing such mechanisms.22
Mail-in and on-line registration systems increase the convenience of the registration
process. On-line systems in particular offer interesting new functionality for voters andadministrators: online programs would allow voters to make all desired transactions, at
any time and from any Internet terminal, by accessing a single Internet site, which would
eliminate time and distance constraints that are often a barrier to registration. It would
also empower the elector by giving them ownership of their registration information andthe opportunity for self-service. This system is widely seen as an efficient solution toincrease the registration rate among difficult-to-target groups, such as youth and highmobility populations. As many feasibility studies concluded, Elections Authorities would
also benefit from such on-line registration system since it would allow a reduction inlabor-intensive transactions and calls.23
On the other hand, since it is more difficult to authenticate the identity of the person
registering, the on-line and mail-in registration systems raise concerns about inaccuracy
and voter fraud. Under these systems, an ineligible person might register; someone mightregister more than once either intentionally or by mistake. Any online process would
require a verification system to ensure that the person seeking to register is eligible. To
prevent duplicate registrations, new names must be verified before they are added to thevoter rolls. A regular review of voter rolls is an effective way of minimizing error,
misconduct, and potential fraud. Regarding security concerns, the Australian practiceseems interesting: a “witness” who must be enrolled or eligible to be enrolled, must sign
the registration form in addition to the applicant. Once the Australian Electoral

21

Washington Secretary of State and Arizona Secretary Of State websites.
Elections Canada
23
See the Online Voter registration feasibility study, 2003, on the Elections Canada website
http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=loi&document=index&dir=fea&lang=e&textonly=false
22

7Commission has received the form and added the person on the voters list, it sends backan acknowledgement “receipt” so the voter can check the accuracy of the voter roll.
4. Data-sharing agreements
Many countries, such as Australia and Canada since the 1998 reform, have opted for acontinuous updating of the voter rolls. This means that the electoral register is maintained
and continually updated by the election administration. This system depends on an
appropriate infrastructure to maintain the list (i.e. to obtain changes in voter information
by adding newly eligible voters, deleting dead voters and updating changes in voters’
addresses). For instance, Elections Canada reports that about 17% of voter information
changes each year: 13% of voters change their address, 1% die, 2% reach 18-years-old
and 1% become Canadian citizens. Regular updating of the permanent list is regarded as
being imperative.
Very often, election authorities form partnerships with other government bodies in orderto facilitate list-updates. For instance, when citizens change their place of residence, they
may inform the post office, the tax bureau, the housing authority or the health insurance
system. Data-sharing partnerships are particularly important regarding deletions (i.e.
death, criminal conviction, etc.) since the voter or his or her family often does not provide
this information, but the government, through vital statistics offices, the department ofcorrections or courts, can easily obtain it. These partnerships allow the election authority
to receive regular updates of changes to these bodies’ files.
Two types of registration strategies are made possible by these data-sharing partnerships:
The Australian Model
Some countries use data-sharing partnerships to identify the out-of-date information on
the voter roll, then follows-up with these individuals to encourage them to register or
update their information. Thus, the registration or update is not automatic and requires a
direct contact with the citizens. For instance, the Australian Electoral Commission
continually reviews electoral roll data and matches it with other national and state data
sources (i.e. postal, immigration, driver’s license, electricity, gas and telephone supply
records)24 to identify:• Addresses from which or into which people are moving (even if it is technicallymandatory for the Australian citizens to submit a new enrollment form within 21
days when they move or change their name).
• Apparently vacant dwellings• Addresses where electors in different surname groups are enrolled, or where noenrolment review has been conducted for a specified timeframe.
Then, the AEC checks these addresses either by an in-person visit, mail or telephone,sending registration forms to these addresses and taking follow up action to encouragethem to register. A good example of these follow-up actions is the Monthly Mail Review
24

It is important to note, though, that data-sharing partnership with these authorities also assists the AEC in
confirming the enrollment details at approximately 43 percent of occupied enrollable addresses without theneed for direct contact with the residents

8System, where a letter is sent to all the identified addresses each month (this represents
about 4 million letters a year) to remind voters to update their enrolment details. Whereno response is received to the first letter, a second letter is mailed, or fieldwork, including
door-knocks, is undertaken. When the AEC receives information that a person is nolonger living at their enrolled address, a notice is sent to the elector advising that theirname will be removed if a satisfactory reply is not received. Each year approximately 2%of all voters are removed through this process. The only automatic deletions are the ones
based on information on recently deceased persons, supplied by the State Registrar of
Births, Deaths and Marriages.
The Canadian Model
Data-sharing agreements actually make it possible to automatically update the electoral
register without any direct contact between the voter and the election authority.
In Canada, information from federal data suppliers is automatically transferred toElections Canada (see chart below). However the “active and informed” consent of theindividuals concerned is needed for the government agencies to be allowed to forward theinformation to Elections Canada. On income tax returns, the Canada Revenue Agency
includes a section that Canadian tax filers can check to have their name, address and dateof birth forwarded to Elections Canada. A similar section exists on Citizenship andImmigration’s application forms (for new Canadians) and on Canada Post’s Change of
Address form. The Canadian opt-out system ensures an adequate protection of freedomof opinion and freedom of speech, since citizens can easily choose whether or not theywant to be registered.
Annual changes to elector information and the sources of data used to maintain the
National Register of Electors
ChangeElectors% ofData Suppliers
Affected Electors in
Register
Address

2,915,000

13

Canada Revenue Agency; Canada Post
Corporation (National Change of Address
Service); provincial and territorial motor vehicle
registrars; provincial electoral agencies withpermanent voters lists

Persons
390,000
reaching theage of 18

2

Canada Revenue Agency; provincial andterritorial motor vehicle registrars; provincial
electoral agencies with permanent voters lists

New citizens 130,000

1

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

Deaths1

Provincial and territorial vital statistics registrars;
provincial electoral agencies with permanent
voters lists

160,000

The most widespread example of this type of data-sharing agreement is partnerships
between Postal Services and the Election Management Body. In New Zealand, people
who move complete a “Mail Redirection Request” at the New Zealand Post office, so that9

their mail is delivered to their new address. New Zealand Post then sends information
about the change of address to the Register of Electors so that it can be updated.
Minnesota has recently implemented a similar system where the office of the Secretary ofState obtains on a monthly basis a list of registered voters who have filled permanent
forwarding orders with the USPS.25 The Secretary of State’s office then forwards theinformation to the appropriate county auditor, who updates the voter lists and sends a
notice to the new address of the voter. In cases where the USPS data indicates that a voter
has moved to another State, the auditor sends a notice indicating that the voter is nolonger eligible to vote in Minnesota. Then, unless the voter contacts the auditor within 21days, the auditor changes the voter’s status to “inactive” and sends a follow up piece ofmail notifying the voter of the change. Returned mail information is also forwarded to theSecretary of State.
The data-partnership strategy seems quite cost-efficient: in Australia for instance, thetotal cost associated with voter roll administration activities (i.e. data entry, purging, datamatching programs, including all activities with no direct contact with voters) in 20042005 (no elections) was A$46 million (USD $30 million, or USD$2.10 per voter), andA$58 million (USD $38 million, or USD$2.70 per voter) in 2003-2004 (electoral period).
5. Civil register systems
The civil registry approach is practicable in countries (particularly in Europe and Latin
America) where the state maintains for administrative reasons a register of the whole
population including basic data, like age, residence, citizenship, and ID number. For
instance, in Sweden, the Tax Administration maintains a Population Registration
Database for administrative purposes, shared with other government agencies on a needbasis. Its day-to-day updating is handled by the local offices of the Tax Administration
thanks to information details provided by other agencies that frequently interact with the
public (i.e. social insurance office, municipalities, police, etc). In Denmark, all citizens
and residents of Denmark are included in the national register, Det Centrale
Personregister, where each person is assigned a personal number of ten digits, which
include the person's date of birth. The register, which is maintained by the Ministry of
Welfare, is used for tax lists, voter lists, the universal health care system, official recordof residence, and other purposes. Italy, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands also have
Resident Population Registries, maintained by municipal-level administrative offices. In
these countries, inclusion on the list is mandatory and citizens are often required to reportchanges of their information to the officials who maintain the list within a specified time.
In many cases, citizens who fail to report their change of address to the authority incharge are subject to a fine.
Civil registry systems can also rely on the existence of national citizen IDs, which allows
information about citizens to be managed coherently and comprehensively. Many LatinAmerican countries (i.e. Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua) combine the preparation of
their voter rolls with the issuance of a national ID card and Civil Registration (bothissued by the Electoral Management Body), which seems to be an extremely efficientconfiguration. Lists of electors can be compiled easily whenever an election is scheduled
25

Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State, bill H1546-0
http://www.sos.state.mn.us/docs/summary_automatic_address_updating_law.pdf

10

to take place by identifying in the registry the people who are qualified to vote. For
instance, the Swedish Electoral Authority purchases26 an electoral roll for each electoral
district extracted from this Population Registration Database 30 days before the date ofelections. This electoral roll contains only the persons who have the right to vote in theconcerned election. Similarly, in Italy, the Municipal Electoral Offices maintain andcontinuously update a General Archive of Electors, composed of:• A list of electors to be included from the voters lists (people who have recently
turned 18, new residents of the municipality, etc.)• A list of electors to be excluded from the voters lists (people no longer residing inthis area, deceased, disqualified for any reason).
This information is used to periodically update the voter lists (at least twice a year).
Several extraordinary revisions also take place before an election.
This is the least expensive process of putting together voter rolls, because most of thecosts have been incurred for maintaining the registry from which the relevant informationis collected. According to the CORE Surveys, the cost for voter registration in mostcountries using a civil registry system is rather low. For instance, in Sweden, the 2004
European Parliament Elections costs of voter registration represented less than 0.5% of
the total cost of the elections (about USD$ 0.017 per registered voter)27. In Spain, costs
related to the routine production and monthly update of voter lists is part of the regularbudget of the National Institute of Statistics, which totaled 200 million euros in 2004. The
costs are not officially calculated separately in the Institute’s budget, but could be morethan 15-percent of the total (USD $9.7 million dollars, or USD $0.30 per voter).28
Automatically updated systems are also less time-consuming and the building of the rolls
can take place closer to Election Day. In such a system, the election authority’s role in theprocess is usually limited to scrutinizing the registration data for errors and omissions,and undertaking revision and production of the final list used on Election Day. Also, theprocess of pulling together up-to-date and accurate voter lists is very quick, which is an
important feature in countries with parliamentary systems that do not have set dates forelections, like in the U.S.

26

The Electoral Agency pays a fee for this information: the amount for the Euro referendum in 2003 (mostrecent data available) totaled 500,000 kroners ($64,000). The amount is calculated on the basis of thenumber of persons in the register with the per-name being 2-5 ore (1 kroner = 100 ore).
27
Additional costs (approximately USD $2 million in 2004) involved the printing and dissemination of
voting cards to all eligible voters. These figures do not include the hidden cost shouldered by the Swedish
Tax Administration in maintaining the population registration database (including salaries and otheroperational expenses). In 1997, 614 employees at the cost of USD $48,768,000, managed population
registration
28
CORE
Case
Study
http://aceproject.org/ero-en/regions/europe/ES/es-spain_core-part-iipdf.pdf/view?searchterm=spain
Lists of voters are distributed to the municipalities for a five-day revision period before every election andthe municipality undertakes an extensive outreach effort to inform the voters of this reviewing period.
Following revision, the Office of the Voter Registry distributes voter lists to each polling station and to thepolitical parties. In 2004, these operations cost 13 million Euros, or $USD 16 million (USD $0.50 per
voter), but these numbers include the management of “external voting” (vote by mail).

11

The major drawback of this system is the concern of citizens and privacy advocates aboutdata sharing among government institutions. If the concerns are widespread, a civil
registry may be simply unacceptable despite its usefulness. A good illustration of theseconcerns can be found in the great suspicion in the U.S. around the Carter-Baker
Commission’s recommendations. The Commission called for all voters to produce a
standard photo identification card before being allowed to vote (either the REAL ID Cardor a free photo ID provided by the states).29
Privacy Concerns
One widespread concern about these more inclusive ways of creating voters lists is thepotential loss of privacy. In this regard, the registers specifically created for electoral
purposes (periodic enumeration systems) need not include as much information as othertypes of registers and can therefore be more protective of personal data. However, many
countries using data-sharing agreement and civil register systems have implemented
creative ways to protect their citizen’s privacy through the registration process:Independent Agency Model
The independence of the Electoral Management Body, avoiding political partisanship in
the administration of elections, is one of the basic guarantees that help protect the privacyof voters.
• In Canada, the head of the electoral agency (Chief Electoral Officer) is nominatedby parliament (appointed by a parliament resolution in a way that allow all parties
represented there to contribute to the selection process), reports only to parliamentand serves until retirement or resignation (this person can only be removed forcause by the Governor General, following a joint address of the House ofCommons and Senate).
• The Australian approach to Electoral Management Body is quite similar, withstatutorily independent bodies presiding over Commissioners. Perhaps mostimportantly, the individuals who run the federal and local election authorities
occupy statutorily created positions; each is the Electoral Commissioner of his or
her jurisdiction.
Opt-out provisions and silent registration
Citizens in some countries with universal voter registration have the option of keeping
their personal information confidential. Various reasons exist for these privacy concerns:
people that have been subject to domestic violence, victims of crimes, and certain
occupational groups such as police, judges, magistrates, and celebrities may wish toremain anonymous.
The Canadian Model: the Principle of Active Consent
The Canadian National Register of Electors contains basic information about each
person—name, address, sex and date of birth—which is transferred to Elections Canada
29

Building Confidence in the US Elections: report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform,
September 2005, American University, http://www.american.edu/ia/cfer/report/full_report.pdf

12

only with the “active and informed consent” of the individual voter. For instance, on its
income tax returns, the Canada Revenue Agency includes a section that Canadian tax
filers can check to have their name, address and date of birth forwarded to Elections
Canada. According to Revenue Canada, about 81% of tax filers agree to the transfer—anindication that informed consent does work. 30 Tax filers must give new consent for theirdetails to be passed to Elections Canada every year, since people might not remember
one year to the next whether they have given consent and another person may complete
their tax return.
In addition, Canadian citizens have the right to have their information excluded from the
National Register of Electors or prevent its transfer to the provinces and territories by
writing to the Chief Electoral Officer. In this case, they still can vote using Same-Day
registration at the polls, or by registering with the office of the returning officer at thetime of an election.
The Oceanian Model: Silent/Anonymous Voter Registration“Silent” or “anonymous” voter registration procedures were introduced in New Zealandand Australia in the 1980s as a means to allow certain categories of voters to not havetheir details appear on the voter roll. This provision seemed particularly necessary inthese two countries because of the compulsory feature of the voting process (compulsory
voting in Australia, compulsory registration in New Zealand). During the last electoral
cycles, 0.35% of the New Zealand’s registered voters and 3.4% of the Australian voterswere “anonymous” voters.31
At first blush, “anonymous registration” appears to be inconsistent with the principle ofopenness and transparency in the electoral process, since it does not allow the lists to bereviewed by citizens or political parties. This is why election management bodies in both
Australia and New Zealand have sought to restrict access to this option to a relatively
small number of individuals with legitimate reasons for wishing to remain anonymous.
People requesting placement on the “silent voters list” must provide evidence theirpersonal safety and security otherwise would be at risk, by completing an application
form and a statutory declaration and supporting documentation setting out in detail thenature of the personal risk.
In Australia, silent enrolment means that the address (and the address only) of the elector
will not be shown on any publicly available (published or circulated) electoral roll. In
New Zealand, anonymous voters are only registered on the confidential electoral roll, the“Unpublished Electoral Roll,” which can only be viewed by the Registrar of Electors.
Their enrollment details are not released to anyone, they do not appear at all on the
published roll and the elector's details are not even supplied to local election officials.
Both Australia and New Zealand also share the practice of making the list of “silent
30

5% refused, 11% left the consent box blank in 1996-1997. See the Data Quality study on Elections
Canada website :http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=ins&document=index&dir=int&lang=e&textonly=false
31
According to the ACE project http://aceproject.org/electoral-advice/archive/questions/replies/648740563

13

voters” available for scrutiny by a small number of party officials who take an oath tomaintain the confidentiality of the list.
In Australia, “silent electors” can vote by mail (when they request a silent enrollment,
they can also apply to be registered as permanent postal voters), pre-poll (early voting) orwith provisional ballots on Election Day. In New Zealand, anonymous electors are
required to cast a Special Declaration Vote (SDV), as their details are not on the roll usedin polling precincts. In Sweden, the law regulating public access to the voters roll(Notification Register Act, Personal Information Act and Secrecy Act) are based on asimilar principle: the public is generally allowed access to the population registration
database through the local tax office, unless the person to whom the information applies
will suffer a disadvantage as a result of the divulgement of the information.
Use of Personal Details
In Canada, the voter roll is made available to a select group of people, including politicalparties and members of the House of Commons each year, and candidates at the time ofan election. This information can only be used for electoral purposes, such as in soliciting
contributions and recruiting members. Any other use of this information is illegal. In
Italy, voter rolls are public documents, accessible, under the Constitution and the Italian
Data Protection Act, for electoral, research or general interest purposes. The Supervisory
Authority for Personal Data protection ensures that there is no abusive usage of the voter
rolls.
Privacy Commissioner
In Canada, a Privacy Commissioner has the right, at any time, to audit how informationfrom the National Register of Electors is collected, stored, updated and used to ensurethat the elector’s right to privacy is respected. Similarly, in Italy, an independent
authority (Supervisory Authority for Personal Data Protection) regulates public access tothe civil registry.
Registering Young Voters
Voting levels have historically been lowest among young people, and the registration
process seems to be the primary barrier to their electoral participation. It has been
estimated that 2% of the electorate attains voting age every year, but for various reasons(high mobility, reduced level of political attentiveness, lack of strong stake in theircommunity of residence, etc.) these first-time voters are difficult to register. According to
a 2005 Harvard University study, students are “more likely [than any other cohort ofAmericans] to cite registration mistakes or a lack of registration knowledge as a reason
why they did not vote.”32 And yet, there is some evidence that “those who do not votewhen first they have an opportunity to do so, fall out of the voting pool.”33 Effectively
registering first-time voters may have a positive effect on participation in the long term. It

32

From Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) Fact Sheet:
http://www.savevoting.org/studentvoteract.html
33
ACE Electoral Network14

is thus an important challenge for the election authority to launch initiatives to increase
registration of first-time voters.
1. Provisional registration systems
Some countries (i.e. Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, and two U.S. States (Florida and
Hawaii)) have implemented provisional registration systems, by extending the effective
period in which young people can enroll, in particular by adding a year in which they canbe placed on a provisional list of electors. The election authority automatically moves
those on the provisional list to the active voter roll upon their reaching the legal votingage.
This method provides the election authority with a considerably longer period of time inwhich to contact, and be contacted by those who are coming of voting age. It also
provides the voters that turn 18 a few weeks before the election the same opportunity toregister as those who turn 18 long before Election Day. In addition, it decreases
registration activity during the revision period or before the voter registration deadline,
leading to reduced burden on local election administrators.
The efficiency of the provisional registration system greatly varies between countries andstates. The highest registration rate among the 17 year-olds seems to be in Australia,
where approximately 16% of 17-year-olds are on the provisional list according to theAustralian Electoral Commission (56% of 18 year-old are registered).
2. School-based registration drives
In some countries (i.e. Australia, Canada), the electoral authority launches university andcollege campuses registration campaigns, using educational materials specially designed
to target the youth.
This method seems particularly efficient when combined with a provisional registration
system: in Australia, for instance, the Electoral Commission enters into agreements withhigh schools for registration activities: it pays a small per-capita amount of funding to theschool, based on the number of students at the school who are registered on theprovisional list of electors. The registration effort, thanks to the advance registration
system, can take place in high school not only on college and university campuses. These
policies acting in concert targets a broader group of students and allows for the
introduction of civics classes into the curriculum for all students.
In the U.S., the Higher Education Act of 1998 requires universities to make a “good faitheffort” to offer voter registration to students, but only 17% are in full complianceaccording to a 2004 Harvard University’s Institute of Politics and the Chronicle of Higher
Education study.34 In addition, efforts to engage young Americans in the democratic
process focused on college students, missing about half of young voters who are not in
34

Harvard University Institute of Politics and Chronicle of Higher Education, “Survey of College andUniversity Voter Registration and Mobilization Efforts”, September 13, 2004
Full Text at: www.iop.harvard.edu/pdfs/chronicle_poll_2004_summary.pdf

15

college, including a disproportionate number of African-American and Latino students.
This is why some U.S. states have developed creative approaches to school-based
registration drives, to reach the majority of young people.
These practices and bills include: providing a voter registration form with every highschool diploma (Florida failed bill S 436 in the 2008 legislature), requiring high schools
to provide a summary of voter registration requirements and organize an annual
registration drive coupled with civic education classes (New Jersey A-2752, South
Carolina HB3604), allowing voter registration at offices of public high school guidancecounselors (Louisiana HB 990), requiring schools to publish a report of their voter
registration practices (California AB 183) or even making voter registration arequirement for graduation. These practices could be particularly efficient in states like
Florida and Hawaii, who allow 16-year-old pre-registration. On a federal level, theStudent Voter Act would require all universities that receive federal funds to offer voter
registration to students at the same time they register for classes (thus designating
universities that receive federal funds as “voter registration agencies” for purposes of the
National Voter Registration Act). 35

3. Birthday cards
In Canada and some U.S. States (i.e. Minnesota, California, Michigan, Arizona), theelection authority, by sharing data files with motor vehicle authorities, tax authorities orother government agencies, puts together a list of electors turning 18. It then generates apiece of direct mail to these electors, which may include political education material, anda voter registration form.
This method has several advantages: it personalizes the contact with the citizen, andallows a civic education dimension, which is more likely to boost participation andpolitical activity among the youth. In addition, it is extremely cost effectiveThe nonpartisan group Rock The Vote’s 2007 experiment found that direct mail operations
generate a completed registration for $5-7 per application.36 According to the group’s
website, six percent of those mailed a form completed the application in Rock the Vote’s
2007 test; eight percent returned the registration form when also sent an email reminder.
In addition, birthday card programs seem to have slightly better results than regular direct
mail programs. Interestingly, Rock the Vote also found that “official-looking” direct mailpieces have the best rates of return, which suggests that such operation would be more
efficient if conducted by government agencies than by third parties and partisan groups.
A good example of birthday card program is Victoria (Canada). The Victoria Electoral
Commission sends a birthday card to electors turning 17 to congratulate them on being
eligible for the provisional electoral roll. 27% of 17-years old are on the electoral roll35

Student Voter Opportunity to Encourage Registration Act of 2008 introduced in Congress in 2008 byRepresentatives Jan Schakowsky and Steven LaTourette as well as Senator Dick Durbin)
36
More cost/registration comparative data on
http://www.completecampaigns.com/article.asp?articleid=117

16This rate is 10 percentage points higher than in Australia, where there are no birthday
cards but a similar advance registration system.
4. Youth Medias
New technologies
Young citizens tend to use the Internet more than the general population. On-line
registration (see part 1) systems are likely to be particularly effective in increasing
registration among youth. Also, electoral authorities have developed the use of Internet
for their outreach activities targeting young people. For instance, Elections New Zelanduses social network sites like Bebo and has launched a “young voter” website, designed
in consultation with young people (http://www.ivotenz.org.nz/) Another successful use of
new technologies in New Zealand was the introduction in 2005 of a text messaging
service where eligible applicants could request enrollment form via text message. In thefirst two weeks of the campaign, the Center received close to 18,000 text messages. This
represented two times more enrolment forms than where sent in 2002, when this program
did not exist.
“Edutainment”
The electoral authority may also take the lead on “edutainment” activities, currently
organized by non-profit groups or PACs in the U.S., notably by Rock The Vote, anonpartisan group that uses music and popular culture to engage and incite young people
to register to vote. Indeed, the election authority might host and/or sponsor events thatappeal to young electors (music concerts and festivals), and then weave registration
activities into this event (by having the entertainers encourage attendees to complete
voter registration forms that are provided by the election authority). Although
information about the cost-per-enrollment for this initiative is not available, New Zealand
officials (New Zealand has been a pioneer on this domain with the Let’s Get Loud
Campaign), describe this strategy as “highly effective.” 37
5. Automatic registration
Some countries automatically register young citizens to vote. These countries may or
may not automatically register all other citizens. France, for instance, has a self-initiatedsystem except for 18 years old voters, who are automatically added to the rolls. These
automatic registration practices use traditional data-sharing partnerships, with the census
authorities or other government agencies. In France, all 17 year-olds have to attend a
Selective Service one-day event, in which the census authority registers them. Their
personal details are then transferred to their local election authority so that they can be
automatically registered on the voter rolls.
In some countries with automatic voter registration programs (i.e. Belgium, Germany)
young people are added to the lists if they turn 18 by Election Day. In others (i.e. Spain,

37

Increasing youth voter registration, best practices in targeting young electors, Keith Archer, July 2003.
Available on line at
http://www.elections.ca/eca/eim/article_search/article.asp?id=51&lang=e&frmPageSize=&textonly=false

17

Italy), where the lists are not updated continuously, the 17 year olds are also added toprovisional lists if they turn 18 before the next revision.
Institutional structure
A country’s voter registration process allows it to compile voter lists for elections at
every level of government. This is why the institutional structure of the election
authorities varies widely among countries.
Top-Down Process: The Australian Model
Australia has a single election authority—the Australian Electoral Commission—that is
responsible for maintaining up-to-date electoral rolls for federal, State and Territory andlocal government elections. There is a single national registration database and voters’
entries on the federal electoral roll are coded to indicate if the voter is also eligible forelections in the relevant state or territory. This way, each State or Territory concludes a“Joint Roll Agreement” with the AEC and can then be provided with an accurate extractfrom the federal electoral roll for its own elections.

Bottom Up Process: The Italian Model
By contrast, in Italy, voter lists are generated by drawing from the Resident Population
Registry, maintained at the local level by Municipal Registry Offices.
Election Authorities in Italy
Municipal
Electoral Composed of municipal
Commission
councilors, elected by themunicipal council. Presided
by the mayor.
Territorial
Electoral Composedof
persons
Commission
proposed by the politicalparties and elected by theprovincial council + 1
member appointed by theprefecture. Presided by a
Deputy PrefectElectoral Office
Municipal
Electoral
Commissions + Territorial
Electoral
Commissions,
under guidance of theministry of interior

Ascertains
qualification/
disqualifications to vote andresidence location of thevoters.
Decision about inclusion orcancellation of any citizen
from the lists of electors
and adjudication of appeals

Generation,
approval,certification of the voters’
lists, monitoring all periodic
or extraordinary revisions.

Interacting Institutional Levels: The Canadian Model
Since 2000, Elections Canada has shared Register data and/or collaborated on registration
initiatives with provincial electoral agencies in British Columbia, Newfoundland andLabrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island, and with municipal electoral
agencies, including that of the City of Winnipeg. These efforts allow all agencies to18

improve data quality, minimize duplication of effort, and save money. Provincial
electoral agencies can use the NRE to prepare their local elections, but also contribute toimproving its quality through gathering information from health care agencies, individual
electors (locally registering or/and updating their information at the polling place), or the
public curator (responsible of tutorship and curatorships).
Conclusion
The current self-initiated system for voter registration in the U.S. is anachronistic andinefficient and could be greatly improved by implementing other techniques to keep therolls up-to-date. The first easy steps to be taken towards universal registration are theimplementation of some kind of on-line registration opportunities and a significant
expansion of Election Day Registration. But, most significantly, data-sharing agreements
should be conducted with more government agencies, notably with vital records
maintained in each state, county-based Clerks of Court, USPS, and tax offices on every
level of government. On these agencies applications and records, citizens could have theopportunity to register to vote by checking a box to assert their “active” consent anddeclare they are American citizens.
Specific programs should be implemented for the registration of young voters. The best
approach to targeting the youth seems to be the creation of a provisional list (16 and 17year-old registration), in conjunction with high school-based registration drives andbirthday card programs at 17 and 18 years old. Also, the U.S. system could be improvedby allowing room for federal level supervision (or certification) of the voter lists (in aEuropean fashion), or interoperability of voters list between States, as the Carter Baker
Commission recommended. Of all the democracies studied, only the U.S. has no national
lists or standards for voter registration.

19

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