Register and Vote

by Matthew Thornburg

At the risk of preaching to the converted, tomorrow is the last day in Pennsylvania to register to vote and participate in the 2024 election. I of course urge anyone who may have overlooked this, to register and make your voice heard in a few short weeks. But it’s also important to remember that next door in Ohio, that deadline passed two weeks ago. On the other hand, in some states, such as our neighbor to the south, Maryland, folks may register to vote on Election Day if they wish. And in one state—North Dakota—there is no voter registration.

Justice Louis Brandeis famously called the states “laboratories of democracy.” And so it is that this patchwork of state laws has the advantage of showing us which practices work and which do not. No surprise either, that people lead busy lives, procrastinate, and wait until the last minute to register to vote—often missing the deadline. We know from comparison that allowing voters to show up, register, and vote leads to an increase in turnout of about 3 percentage points among those eligible.

Every day further away from the election you set the deadline to register to vote results in literally thousands of people missing the window across a state and having to sit out the election. I therefore urge you to register to vote if you have not already, and support reforms in our state that make it easier to do so.