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Voter registration spiked in days immediately following Ruth Bader Ginsburg death

by Brooke Seipel - 09/28/20 7:11 PM ET

Voter registration and mail-in ballot requests spiked in the days following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, according to a report by NBC News.

Vote.org, a nonpartisan non-profit organization, tells NBC News that it saw a surge of requests the weekend following Ginsburg’s death, with 139,046 registration verifications, or a 118 percent increase compared to the previous weekend.

It’s website has tools that let voters double-check that their registration is still active, register to vote and request a mail-in ballot. It also includes information on voting laws and how to find polling places.

The site also saw 41,000 new voter registrations the weekend of Ginsburg’s death, a 68 percent jump from the previous week, and 35,000 mail-in ballot requests, which marked a 42 percent spike.

“I think it means that people are paying attention, that there’s a younger generation that’s definitely paying attention,” Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey told NBC News. “With 30 some-odd days left to go, people are connecting these major moments in American history with action at the ballot box.”

Hailey told NBC that there was another surge in registrations last Tuesday, which was National Voter Registration Day. Visitors broke the site’s traffic record for the holiday as more than 730,000 people went to the site for voting information and 135,000 people verified their voter registration through the site.

The increase in voter registrations seen by the site come as get-out-the-vote efforts have been pushed by both Democrats and Republicans leading up to the November election.

Former first lady Michelle Obama has been especially active, with her organization When We All Vote encouraging voter efficacy and turnout.

One of the biggest online fundraising platforms for Democratic candidates announced earlier this month that it saw more than $91 million in donations in the 28 hours following Ginsburg’s death, shattering a fundraising record for the site.