At least 23 states offer some form of same-day registration (SDR) — when individuals can register on the spot to cast a regular or provisional ballot — either during early voting or on Election Day.
Once billed by left-wing activist groups such as Demos as a way to increase turnout, especially among younger voters, SDR has evolved in some states to allow mystery voters to cast ballots despite questionable addresses. In other states, such registrants are given carve-outs from residency and regular registration requirements.
The result: An emerging two-tiered voting system that stretches existing election statutes beyond eligibility requirements and allows ballots with invalid addresses to be counted.
Lack of Time to Confirm Information
North Carolina is the latest state embroiled in litigation over SDR. After the Republican-led legislature passed a bill requiring that SDR ballots of individuals whose addresses were later found to be “undeliverable” be pulled from certification in the final tally, three federal lawsuits were filed.
Left-wing groups aligned with uber-Democrat Marc Elias argued in court filings that the statute created a burden for voters who choose to vote with SDR during early voting.
Under a consent decree blessed by a federal judge in May that consolidates two of the lawsuits, North Carolina’s election officials now have to offer SDR voters with an “undeliverable” address a chance to “cure” their faulty address before any action is taken.
The Republican-led legislature then filed a motion to dismiss the third lawsuit, saying the “novel legal theory” already applied in two of the cases renders the third lawsuit moot.
Election integrity groups say the short timeframe for auditing the addresses used for SDR ballots creates a loophole that is too easily gamed with invalid addresses, unlike regular registration that gives registrars more time for an audit.
In North Carolina, some county clerks manage to send out a “mailer” during the 17-day early voting period to check an SDR address. Others are simply too swamped with the election.
Since early voting ends just three days before Election Day, the short time frame for SDR during early voting means unvalidated and ineligible voter registrations have their ballots counted along with the eligible votes.
As a result, SDR ballots cannot be audited or tracked by citizens.
Wisconsin’s Approach to Auditing
Wisconsin requires registrars to audit addresses that are used on SDR ballots and to turn any with “undeliverable” over to local law enforcement for potential felony voter fraud.
But apparently many registrars simply ignore their duty, according to research by Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF). The election-focused law firm checked whether registrars were actually following the law on SDR ballots.
They found that officials in Green Bay failed to perform required audits on SDR ballots for years.
After it filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, PILF researchers discovered that Green Bay’s clerk, Celestine Jeffreys, admitted that “she did not believe it was her duty to inactivate registrants or alert the district attorney” when audit postcards were returned “undeliverable.”
According to PILF, “Green Bay is now one of the better jurisdictions in the state for following the law.”
Virginia Bracing for Flood of SDR Voting
Virginia is one of two states holding off-year elections for governor and statewide offices such as attorney general and lieutenant governor (the other being New Jersey).
It also offers SDR voting during the early voting stretch and on Election Day as well.
Election officials and workers are bracing for another surge in SDR in the fall general election after more than 123,000 SDR registrations were tallied in the 2024 presidential election — more than 85,000 SDR applications on Election Day alone, for an increase of 4,000% since 2022, when the SDR statute became active.
According to formal complaints filed with the Virginia Department of Elections, in 2024, election officials violated residency requirements in the rush to handle thousands of SDR applications.
In some precincts, they allowed college students to use an office address on campus as their residence, in violation of a Virginia statute that says voters’ addresses must be their domicile.
And yet, groups in other parts of the state who tried to use non-residential addresses were rejected, according to election officials.
A survey of general registrars and electoral board members by voter-data analysis group Electoral Process Education Corporation showed their biggest concern was verifying the eligibility of every SDR voter in time to certify the votes.
All of the survey respondents made several points very clear: 1) SDRs are disruptive and created a huge increase in provisional ballots to adjudicate before the deadline to certify the election; 2) guidance was not clear; 3) election statutes governing SDR were not applied consistently.
Proponents of SDR have argued for years that voter fraud with SDR is “exceedingly rare or nonexistent in states that offer Election Day registration.”
The actual data and experience show that laws on eligibility are applied unevenly, if at all, for SDR ballots that are being counted.
Department of Justice Lawsuit
“Free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic,” says President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 14248, entitled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”
North Carolina is already facing a lawsuit by the Department of Justice over voter registration systems that are not in compliance “with federal laws that guard against illegal voting, unlawful discrimination, and other forms of fraud, error, or suspicion.”
The lawsuit alleges North Carolina election officials have failed to maintain accurate lists in its computerized statewide voter registration “in violation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).”
If Republicans want to achieve accurate counts in elections and win, they should look closer at SDR and the two-tiered voting system it creates.
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