The new system that automatically registers voters at the DMV has added thousands of new voters to the rolls in its first month, but issues with the system are preventing some people from registering with their preferred party.
According to numbers from the secretary of state’s office, 39 percent of the automatic voter registration (AVR) records submitted to the counties in January resulted in new voter registration. The state expects this percentage to drop going forward as more people become registered to vote and as the number of Nevadans registered to vote rises.
Of the new voters who have been registered, 59 percent have defaulted to non-partisan. Many of these nonpartisan registrations come from voters who do not select a party, but two system issues also contribute to this number.
The first issue has to do with how the form is filled out. Affiliation cannot be correctly transmitted if the customer marks “other” as the preferred party but does not provide a write-in choice.
Second, if an individual has multiple transactions at the DMV, it can result in multiple voter registration applications for that person. This can be further complicated if party selection, or the decision to opt out, is different between the applications.
Visit The Nevada Independent for the complete story.
