One such major post-move task that you may forget about is to change your voter registration after the move. Keep in mind that you should re-register or change your voter registration information anytime you’ve changed your name or you’ve moved permanently. It’s simple: when you move, your address changes too, and by law, you’re not permitted to vote in more than one place.
Read on to learn how to update voter registration after moving – a necessary step to ensuring that you won’t find out, all of a sudden, that you’re ineligible to vote when you make your way to the polls at Election Day.
WHEN to re-register or change your voter registration information
Unless you no longer wish to be a voter – in which case you’ll need to cancel your voter registration, you’ll need to update your voter registration when you move.
It’s important to understand that you can’t vote in more than one place, meaning that when you register to vote in a new location, you’ll also need to provide your previous address so that your new election office can inform your old election office to cancel your voter registration with them.
You just moved home, are you still registered to vote? It depends. Now, if you’ve moved within the same county, then you’re required to fill in a new voter registration form in order to update your registration address.
On the other hand, if you’ve moved to a new county OR relocated to a new state, then you must re-register to vote in your new city or town. That is true unless you’ve moved to North Dakota – the only U.S. state that does NOT require citizens to register when they want to become eligible voters.
To check your voter registration, visit Vote.org (Are You Registered to Vote?) to verify your voter registration online.
HOW SOON to update your voter registration after the move
As you can imagine, there are voter registration deadlines and the worst part is that those deadlines are different for each state. In any case, you’ll need to know how much time you’ve got to take care of this task – should you do it right away or can you afford to postpone it a few weeks until you’ve finished with the most pressing tasks in your post-move to-do list?
In most states, the voter registration deadline varies between two and four weeks before an election – federal, state, and local elections, as well as primary, general, and special elections. However, some states do allow for same-day voter registration. As mentioned earlier, you shouldn’t worry about your voter registration status if you’ve just moved to North Dakota.
To find out the Election Dates and Deadlines in the state you just moved to, visit the U.S. Vote Foundation and plan accordingly.
HOW to register to vote after a move
You can choose between 3 ways to change your voter registration after moving: in person, via snail mail or online. And depending on the state you just moved to, you may have all three options to register to vote available to you, or you may have only some of them.
So, make sure you’ve included the task of changing voter registration in your post-relocation checklist. Here’s how to do it:
Option 1. Register to vote IN PERSON
If you have enough time, visit your local election office in person and fill out a voter registration application form. Some states will also allow you to update your voter registration information at other public facilities such as the DMV offices, recruitment centers of the U.S. Army, or state or county public assistance offices.
Visit this page to find the state and local election offices where you can complete your in-person voter registration.
Option 2. Register to vote via MAIL
Another way to register to vote after moving to another state is to do it by snail mail. To do so, you’ll need to fill out the National Mail Voter Registration Form. You can download the Form in 9 other languages besides English: Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi, Bengali, and Khmer.
How you fill out that form is up to you: you can print it out first and then fill in the required information by hand, OR you can complete it on-screen and then print it out. The important thing is to follow the state-specific instructions on page 3 of the Form.
Once you’ve filled out the form, sign your name whenever indicated and mail it to your state and local election office where it will be duly processed. When mailing the form, make sure the envelope has the proper amount of postage in order to reach its destination.
Option 3. Register to vote ONLINE
Without a doubt, the easiest and most convenient way to change your voter registration information after moving is to do it ONLINE.
Unfortunately, not all states offer online voter registration yet. At the moment, a total of 37 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia, offer you the chance to register to vote online. To check whether your state is one of the states with online voter registration, visit the Online Registration Page of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).
Updating voter registration online is basically the same process as filling out a paper application and mailing it to your state and local election office for processing. The only difference is that you, as a voter, fill out that form electronically, and then that paperless form is reviewed and if confirmed to be a valid request, is then sent to the corresponding election officials.
Visit the Can I Vote page to begin your online voter registration process.
It’s interesting to note that the state of Arizona is the innovator in paperless voter registration – it implemented its registration system back in 2002.
Regardless of which of the three voter registration methods you’ve chosen, you will be asked to present a valid ID that confirms that you are a resident of that state. Each state requires different voter IDs so it’s good to be prepared. Check the voter ID requirements of your state on the Vote.org’s page Voter ID Laws.
Keep in mind that it’ll take a few weeks for your voter registration information to be processed. Then, it’ll be another 5-7 weeks before you receive your voter registration card in the mail.
