With the Supreme Court upholding a voter roll purge in Virginia, you might understandably feel uncertain about your registration status.
Thomas is a native of upstate New York and a graduate of the University at Albany. As a member of CNET’s How To team, he writes about the intersection of policy, information and technology, and how you can best be served in that area. Outside of work, he can most often be found watching too many movies, reading too much, drinking too much coffee, or spending time with his cats.
News about states clearing out their voter registration rolls continue to make headlines, even as there are less than 24 hours to go until Election Day, so it’s understandable you may be anxious about the status of your own registration if you haven’t looked into it already.
A recent example of this came from Virginia, where this month the state’s attempt to purge suspected noncitizens from its rolls via a program rolled out in August prompted legal action from the Department of Justice, which filed a lawsuit citing concerns that eligible citizens would be unduly removed in the process. In a 6-3 decision from Wednesday, the US Supreme Court allowed Virginia’s contested purge to go through. Similar purges have also recently happened in North Carolina, Texas and Oklahoma, with a federal court ordering a halt on another attempted purge in Alabama.
Research from the Brennan Center found that these purges jumped 21 percent from 2020 to 2022 compared to the same period between 2014 and 2016. While these purges can often be routine matters that accurately clear out voters who are longer eligible, the Brennan Center warned that increasing them too much can lead to heightened “risk of inaccurate purges.” When enacted this close to a major general election, they can also run the risk of purging people who did nothing wrong and leave them with no time to fix the situation.
No matter what the reason might be in your state, there are a handful of free online tools that can help you look up your registration status, and do it quickly. Read on for all the details, including information about avoiding election-year phishing scams.
For more on the upcoming elections, here’s which states currently allow early voting and which states will still let you register to vote.
Where can I check my voter registration?
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While you can hunt down the secretary of state’s website for where you live to check on your voting status, a quicker way is by visiting a nonpartisan voter website to check your registration. Note that all these sites listed below let you check on your voter status if you live in one of the 50 states or Washington, DC, but they don’t include voter information if you live in one of the US territories: US citizens residing in US territories can’t vote for president in the general election. Here are three nonpartisan sites you can use to check on your voter status:
Vote.org is one of the more popular sites that you can use to check your voter registration status online. Operated by a nonprofit, nonpartisan voter outreach organization, Vote.org lets you look up whether you are registered to vote, using a few simple pieces of personal information: Your first and last name, street address, date of birth, and email address. You also have the option to add your phone number to receive texts, which you can also opt out of. If you find you’re not registered, you can tap the Register to Vote buttonon the main Vote.org page to sign up.
Can I Vote from the National Association of Secretaries of State is another one-stop shop for voting resources. If you select the Voter Registration Status link on the main Can I Vote page and then choose the state where you live, you’ll be sent to your state official registration confirmation page to check on your voter status.
Vote411.org, funded by the League of Women Voters, also lets you check on your voter status, register if you’re not signed up, and see what’s on your local ballot. Similar to the NASS voter site, Vote411 allows you to check your status by directing you to your state’s voter registration confirmation page. If you aren’t registered, Vote411.org offers a Register to Vote link on its main page, which prompts you to enter your name, address, email and phone number, and provides information on registration options available to you. If your state offers online registration, Vote411 will provide a direct link to that official page.
From talking fridges to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated.
What if I find out that I’m not registered to vote?
If you use one of these resources and find that you’re not registered, perhaps because of a voter roll purge or because you forgot that you never registered to begin with, there are multiple options at your disposal to try to register in time for the 2024 general election. You can check out this guide from CNET to find out what methods your state offers for voter registration and what its deadlines are. By now, deadlines to register have passed in many states, but there are still some that will allow you to register on Election Day itself.
How do I look out for election phishing?
As in many other aspects of modern life, elections and voter registration have become targets for phishing scams. Reports out of major swing states like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania found that people were targeted by schemes that use URLs like “all-vote.com” and “votewin.org,” with text messages claiming that the recipient wasn’t registered to vote. Clicking through would prompt them to enter their personal information into a form.
In a report on election phishing, cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs suggested three “red flags” to look out for when you suspect such a message might be a scam:
- Check a site like Icann Lookup to see if the URL domain was registered recently.
- Check the site to see if it contains little actual information about who runs the supposed group.
- Check to see how much personal information is asked of you and if the form signs you up for more messages.
All can be clear signs of a phishing scam.
For more information about the upcoming election, check out how the US election system is under attack and how officials are preparing for challenges to the process.
