To cast a ballot in Pennsylvania, voters must be registered by October 21st

The deadline for Pennsylvania residents to register for the 2024 general election is October 21st – just 15 days before Election Day on November 5th.

Registration and voting requirements:

– Voters must be 18 years old on election day.

– You must be a US citizen at least one month before the election.

– You must be a resident of Pennsylvania and the precinct in which you wish to vote at least 30 days before the election.

Anyone who meets these requirements can apply in person, online, or at many government offices, such as: B. DMVs, register.

To register, people must provide identification. This 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 compare their IDs or Social Security numbers against a number of government databases.

Some voter registration information then becomes part of the public record, including names, addresses, dates of birth, voting history and precinct, and telephone number when voters provide this information. Chris Spackman, director of the Dauphin County Bureau of Registration and Elections, said voter registration data could be used for political or non-commercial purposes.

“All those letters that you get asking you to vote for this candidate, that’s where they get that information,” he said.

Sensitive information such as ID cards or parts of a social security number are protected, including from other branches of government such as the legislature.

New address, party or name? How to update voter registration

If a voter has changed their name or address since registering, or if a voter wishes to change their party affiliation, that update must be completed before the October 21 deadline. If the deadline is missed, the changes will apply to the next election.

Voters may cast a ballot for an election at their previous polling place if they moved within Pennsylvania more than 30 days before an election but have not updated their address. Poll workers may ask these voters to fill out a change of address form at the polling place to update registration.

How citizenship is confirmed

In Pennsylvania, only citizens are allowed to vote. Citizens who register or vote face significant civil and criminal penalties.

Kyle Miller, Pennsylvania policy strategist at Protect Democracy, said there is a lot of misinformation about non-citizens voting.

“Our county election officials are doing an excellent job ensuring that no non-citizens vote,” he said. “In a very rare case where this were to happen, these 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 voter rolls to account for people who leave the state, die or are disqualified for other reasons. Consistent with state and federal law, registered voters who have not voted in two consecutive federal election cycles are also excluded.

Miller said counties sent a postcard to these “inactive” voters to confirm they had not moved.

Pennsylvania counties completed their annual review and cleanup of voter rolls in August.

“Pennsylvania has a very high-quality list maintenance program,” Miller said. “We did some number crunching earlier this year looking at the voter registration database and we see that about 95 to 99 percent of the expected list maintenance that we would expect is happening and has already happened for 2024 in Pennsylvania.”