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Check Anyone's Voter Registration Status in Seconds [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-06-09  

Disclaimer: I don’t work for or get any kind of commission or affiliate pay from Resistbot, I just think it’s a great tool.

It’s rare that one of the most important things you can do as a progressive voter is also one of the easiest. But thanks to a tool that doesn’t get nearly enough attention, you can check your voter registration on a regular basis to help make sure you’re kept on your state’s voting rolls or know when your name disappears.

Resistbot is a free service (now with a paid premium version) that uses a bot to automatically contact elected officials on your behalf for a campaign you start or one you join. Thank of it as change.org for contacting your local representatives. You can write out a letter which is automatically sent to them, you can use AI to help write a letter (which works well if you’re specific enough that you write out half the letter in your prompt), and you can send the letters to any officials you specify. The service takes care of actually mailing, emailing, or faxing the letter to them. Don’t laugh at that; imagine stepping off the floor to go to your office and ask your communications director a question before jetting off to your next fundraiser but they can’t think because they’ve been too busy wading through a pile of letters on a single issue, trying to find the plug for the fax machine (after Googling what it is if they’re under a certain age).

Resistbot can also automatically check your voter registration status in seconds and at least from what I can tell at no cost to you. All you have to do is go to their website, click on one of the ways to chat with the bot (Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Apple Messages, and a couple others), and type the word “check.”

It will ask for your name and address. When I tested it, it also asked me a couple clarifying questions: was I planning on voting in my home state this election or would I be moving? Did my address ever have this particular street number? After a minute or so, it confirmed that my voter registration was active.

If you decide to get the premium version, the bot will automatically check your registration every month and will notify you if you drop off the voter rolls. We know that there’s a concerted and organized effort by an army of conservatives to try and purge voter rolls as much as they can. Knowing if your name disappears from the rolls as soon as possible is essential and can give you extra time to fight to make sure your registration stays active.

This can also be an invaluable tool for field organizers. Some of the most awkward conversations I’ve had with people when canvassing is about whether or not their registration is still valid and how to check. Even when the answer is pretty simple, people who’d otherwise become volunteers or definite voters sometimes shrink in front of that extra barrier. But now, even in states that make it hard to know, an organizer can use the bot to check and see if a voter’s on the rolls. And while some of the effect of voter purging is literal, it’s the perception that can sometimes hurt the most—the idea that thousands of people just assume that because of their race or identity they probably won’t be allowed to vote when in reality they’re still registered.

Eliminating voters from the rolls as quietly as possible has long been a strategy the right has relied upon to keep elections from being so fair that they lose. By far, these purges are most effective when they’re quiet, when people don’t realize they’re happening until they go to vote and it’s too late. But if we can tell if people are off the rolls months in advance and in a matter seconds, we can push back at a level they’re not expecting. And while I don’t have actual numbers to back this up, I’m betting that if you help someone save their status as a registered voter, they’re more likely to use that and vote in November.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/9/2245683/-Check-Anyone-s-Voter-Registration-Status-in-Seconds?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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