New voter registrations plunge during pandemic

The number of people registering to vote for the first time has fallen dramatically in recent months as traditional venues for registrations were closed or banned during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study released Wednesday.

The report by the Center for Election Innovation and Research found that while voter registrations were running ahead of the 2016 pace in the early part of this year, new registrations collapsed in March and April, when the pandemic began raging across the United States.

The study points to venues in which most voters typically register for the first time — the department of motor vehicles (DMV) or voter registration drives at big events and festivals — which were closed amid lockdowns.

DMV closures are particularly harmful to voter registration in states that have automatic registration programs that enroll voters when they interact with government agencies.

“As DMV transactions have declined, registrations have dwindled,” the authors wrote. “While new voter registration deficits may be difficult to overcome, they could spark a push to make up for lost time as states reopen.”

Analyzing new voter registration data in 11 states and the District of Columbia, the study found about 600,000 new voters registered in March, followed by about 200,000 in April. Four years earlier, about 700,000 registered in those same states in both months.

New voter registrations in those states exceeded 2016 levels in January but began dropping off in February, the report found.

Dozens of states that are members of the Electronic Registration Information Center, a multistate consortium designed by the director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, plan to contact about 20 million of their citizens who are eligible but not registered to vote. The report estimated that those contacts could lead to “several million new registrations this fall.”