Dear Friend of National Voter Registration Day:
As we began making plans for the biggest National Voter Registration Day in history – September 22, 2020 – we never imagined that we would be facing a global crisis with such profound impacts on our abilities to organize and engage in civic conversations with our colleagues, neighbors, and friends.
Voter registration is more important than ever this year. With DMVs across the country shuttered because of COVID-19, and field-based registration drives on hold, millions of voter registrations are no longer being collected or updated. At the same time, in order to be able to take advantage of some of the options being rolled out in the states to reduce the spread of COVID-19 – such as vote by mail – eligible voters need to be registered at their current addresses well ahead of Election Day.
National Voter Registration Day will be uniquely positioned to address this backlog in voter registrations and ensure more eligible voters are registered to vote in November. Despite changing circumstances, we are already capable of engaging voters en masse through digital means. Forty-one states plus the District of Columbia allow voters to register online. In the last several years, in-platform activations by partners such as Google, Facebook, Snap Inc., and Twitter have generated unprecedented numbers of voter registrations on the holiday. Combining these efforts with the digital outreach undertaken by other partners led to nearly 70 percent of last year’s holiday registrations taking place online.
At the same time, we are thinking through how we can continue to support our partners to conduct events in a safe and responsible way this September 22. While we hope that many of the current social distancing measures will be in the rear-view mirror by September, we are also preparing for the possibility that they are not. Some special measures we’re considering include: ramping up the number of webinars we offer, including webinars on digital organizing; building partnerships with organizations that will remain open even with social distancing, working closely with groups that serve populations particularly vulnerable to and impacted by COVID-19; and incorporating supplemental resources and messaging in our toolkits, posters, and trainings about the different options voters have to cast ballots.
Every year, National Voter Registration Day saturates the internet, airwaves, and communities with voter registration information. This year will be no exception. But this year, we’ll also use the holiday to raise public awareness not only of voter registration options, but also alternative means of voting across the country.
A successful National Voter Registration Day on September 22 is crucial to ensuring that all Americans have an opportunity to take advantage of expanded options to vote in a safe way.
Join us!