Online Voter Registration Surges

More than 600 people signed up to vote online during the first 30 hours of online voter registration, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. No doubt spurred by media coverage of the brand-new opportunity, the initial flurry of sign-ups included people from 28 of Oregon's 36 counties, and included at least 8 people in their 80's. More Democrats than Republicans signed up, though the ratio was roughly the same as the existing ratio of Democrats to Republicans. It's worth noting that the Oregon Independent Party enjoyed a disproportionate number of online voter registrations when compared to their existing numbers. But it's unclear to me whether that represents an actual surge of interest in that party, which is relatively new, or whether people simply clicked on that box instead of the "non-affiliated" box.

Of course, more than two million Oregonians had already figured out how to register to vote prior to this week's debut of online voter registration. Those existing forms of voter registration will continue for the foreseeable future. It's also worth noting that although online voter registration debuted Monday in Oregon, it has been possible to find voter registration forms online for years. But until this week, you had to print it out and mail it in.