Increasing Voter Registration
We work year-round to make sure all eligible Americans—especially first-time voters, non-college youth, new citizens, communities of color, and low-income Americans—have the opportunity to register and vote.
Why it matters
Every eligible voter should have a fair and equal opportunity to register to vote and to cast their ballot. Millions of Americans miss the opportunity to vote because they don’t know how to register or they miss their state’s deadline to register.
What we're doing
As the nation’s largest and longest-standing grassroots voter registration organization, our volunteers register hundreds of thousands of voters and host community voter registration drives across the country each year. We concentrate our registration drives at locations that reach large numbers of unregistered voters, including high schools and community colleges, transit hubs and naturalization ceremonies. Each year, we also help tens of thousands of Americans register online at VOTE411.org.
What You Can Do
Increasing Voter Registration In Depth
Last year, an army of paid workers with stacks of voter registration forms fanned out in Memphis, Nashville and other parts of Tennessee to persuade African Americans to vote. In response, the legislature passed a law imposing civil penalties on groups that employ paid canvassers if they submit incomplete or inaccurate voter registration forms.
The League joined over 100 organizations on letters to all announced presidential candidates urging them to implement a democracy reform plan.
The League sent a memo to the U.S. Senate calling for a hearing on the For the People Act.
The sooner we can start educating young people about our election and voting systems, the more empowered they will be to make their voices heard.
The League of Women Voters strongly urges members of the U.S. House to vote for HR1, the For the People Act.
This year, in addition to helping register a record number of new voters in 2018, 853 League volunteers dedicated 6,600 hours of their time to inform, assist, and engage with over 47,000 new citizens at the ceremonies nationwide.
Our League volunteers spent over 180,000 hours working to register, inform, and protect voters. Check out our impact in the 2018 midterm elections.
Exactly one week after the election, I had the privilege of joining fellow members of the League of Women Voters of DC to register new voters at a naturalization ceremony. I had never been to a naturalization ceremony and was uncertain what to expect.
Activists are arranging in-person meetings with incoming members of the 116th House of Representatives and dropping in to have conversations with staff members on the need for HR 1, the first bill that the House plans to take up in January.