The deadline for Pennsylvanians to register to vote in the 2024 general election is Oct. 21 — just 15 days before Election Day on Nov. 5.
Registration and voting requirements:
— Voters must be 18 years old on Election Day.
— They must be a U.S. citizen for at least a month before the election.
— They must be a resident of Pennsylvania and the election district where they want to vote for at least 30 days prior to the election.
Anyone meeting these requirements can register in person, online or at many government offices, such as DMVs.
To register, people must provide identification. That can be a Pennsylvania driver’s license, a PennDOT ID card number or the last four digits of an applicant’s Social Security number. To confirm a voter’s identity and current address, counties check ID or social security numbers against a number of government databases.
Some voter registration data then becomes part of the public record, including names, addresses, birth dates voting history and voting district, as well as phone number if voters include that information. Chris Spackman, director of the Dauphin County Bureau of Registration and Elections, said voter registration data can be used for political or non-commercial purposes.
“All those letters that you get asking to vote for this candidate, that’s where they get that information,” he said.
Sensitive information, like ID or any part of a social security number, are protected, even from other branches of the government like the legislature.
New address, party or name? Here’s how to update voter registration
If a voter has changed their name or address since registering, or if a voter wants to change their party affiliation, that update must be completed before the Oct. 21 deadline. If the deadline is missed, the changes will apply for the next election.
Voters can cast a ballot at their past polling location for one election if they moved within Pennsylvania more than 30 days before an election but didn’t update their address. Poll workers may ask these voters to fill out a change of address form at the polling place to update the registration.
How citizenship is confirmed
Only citizens are able to vote in Pennsylvania. Noncitizens who register or vote are subject to significant civil and criminal penalties.
Kyle Miller, Pennsylvania policy strategist at Protect Democracy, said there has been a lot of misinformation around noncitizen voting.
“Our county election directors do a fantastic job of making sure that noncitizens are not casting ballots,” he said. “In a very rare instance where that would happen, those ballots would not be counted as a proper vote.”
He said personal information is checked against multiple databases to ensure people are who they say they are.
How voter rolls are kept up to date
Counties regularly remove names from the voter rolls to reflect people who move out of state, die, or are disqualified for other reasons. Registered voters who have not participated in two consecutive federal general election cycles are also removed, in line with state and federal law.
Miller said counties send these “inactive” voters a postcard to confirm they haven’t moved.
Pennsylvania counties finished their annual review and cleaning of voter rolls in August.
“Pennsylvania has a very high-quality list maintenance program,” Miller said. “We ran some numbers earlier this year to look at the voter registration database and we see that about 95 to 99 percent of the expected list maintenance that we would expect to see is happening and has happened already for 2024 in Pennsylvania.”
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This story is part of an explanatory series focused on Pennsylvania elections produced collaboratively by WITF in Harrisburg and The Associated Press.
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The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here.