Washington sets a record with National Voter Registration Day 2018

Washington sets a record with National Voter Registration Day 2018

October 02, 2018

Since 2012, elections officials across America have made National Voter Registration Day an annual focal point of public-awareness campaigns to get more eligible citizens to register to vote. In Washington, as in other states, the effort has concentrated largely on getting young adults to sign up as registered voters. This demographic is targeted for two key reasons: [caption id="attachment_25418" align="alignright" width="495"]

Percentages of voting and registration by age in United States in 2016. U.S. Census Bureau[/caption] First, the U.S. Census Bureau regularly finds that young people who are eligible to vote are registered at much lower rates than citizens in older age groups. Second, research has found that young adults who develop the habit of voting regularly frequently become lifelong voters. This work to increase young-voter participation took Secretary of State Kim Wyman into a series of forums, online and in person, on Sept. 25 to promote National Voter Registration Day 2018. She appeared at Highline College, Pacific Lutheran University, and Mount Tahoma High School to promote civic engagement and voter registration with student groups and classes.

Sec. Wyman also co-hosted a Reddit.com Ask Me Anything session with Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon to answer questions about voting and government. All this awareness activity produced outstanding, and unprecedented, results. More voters registered with Washington's Myvote.wa.gov during National Voter Registration Day 2018 than in any previous year's event — even beating the online registrations from National Voter Registration Day in the 2016 presidential election year. Elections Division officials report that 8,616 Washingtonians registered to vote online or updated existing registrations on National Voter Registration Day 2018, topping the 8,271 registrants during the 2016 event. For the year, Washington had newly registered 289,333 voters as of the end of September, 65,590 of whom registered online. Here's a chart of Washington's new voter registrations going back to 2016:

2016			2017			2018
	Total	Online		Total	Online		Total	Online
Jan	32,712	9,370	Jan	11,438	1,340	Jan	26,134	4,574
Feb	39,224	13,760	Feb	8,036	895	Feb	20,828	3,565
Mar	75,069	37,964	Mar	20,099	2,321	Mar	27,506	4,220
Apr	34,737	8,522	Apr	8,741	853	Apr	23,679	3,652
May	33,764	7,491	May	16,134	1,956	May	27,873	3,979
Jun	41,785	5,857	Jun	23,441	2,862	Jun	31,832	5,074
Jul	45,038	10,074	Jul	3,445	700	Jul	43,680	14,016
Aug	48,533	10,698	Aug	16,374	2,778	Aug	36,232	7,559
Sep	84,593	37,598	Sep	29,018	4,257	Sep	51,569	18,951
Oct	83,658	43,896	Oct	14,797	4,027	YTD total:	289,333	65,590
Nov	28,454	7,327	Nov	7,179	1,685
Dec	18,092	1,477	Dec	20,403	2,377
Total:	565,659	194,034	Total:	179,105	26,051

The deadline is Oct. 8 to register online or by mail to vote in this year's General Election, so be sure your friends and family know about the convenience of signing up at MyVote.
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