Millions are interested in voting. Millions.
Research done and published in
oxfordjournals.org, using Google web searches for voter registration information, has turned up something many of us have
known for a long time.
We estimate that keeping registration open through Election Day in 2012 would have allowed an additional 3 million to 4 million Americans to register and vote.
We used the number of Google searches for “register to vote” in the weeks leading up to the 2012 election to measure late interest in registering. These search terms were entered millions of times, and much of the activity fell at the very end of the campaign period.
People search for all kinds of things and so just because someone shows interest in searching out voter registration information does not mean they are going to register to vote.
To estimate the relationship between searching online, and actually registering, we turned to state records of registered voters. The data confirm that, in the period leading up to voter registration deadlines, the daily number of Google searches in each state was closely related to the daily number who registered. If the same pattern had been allowed to continue up to Election Day, millions more Americans would have registered in time to vote.
All told, the data suggests there could and would have been a
3% increase in turnout if voting deadlines were extended. With
voter ID laws unchecked by hands-off-the-wheel judiciaries and
historically low voter turnouts, it's America that can benefit from any and all remedies.