Improving State Voter Registration Databases

Wednesday, 21 October 2009 14:04

Pre-Publication Report From the National Research Council

From Summary

Voter registration plays a central role in elections in the United States. Today, the
states operate under a federal mandate (the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002) to
develop "a single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter
registration list defined, maintained, and administered at the state level." Each state’s
database must contain the name and registration information of each legally registered
voter in the state, and each legally registered voter is required to be assigned a unique
identifier. Election officials must perform regular maintenance regarding the accuracy of
the registration lists. In addition, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993
establishes rules under which names may be removed from voter registration lists. (A
voter registration list is the list of names contained in a voter registration database, and
the terms are often used interchangeably.)

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