SAINT PAUL — Today, Secretary of State Steve Simon announced that over the last week nearly 47,000 Minnesotans have taken advantage of the state’s online voter registration system — an all-time record since its launch in September 2013. Tomorrow, Tuesday, September 27, has been declared “Voter Registration Day” in Minnesota.
Nearly 27,000 Minnesotans alone took advantage of the state’s online voter registration system on Friday, September 23, the largest single-day number of online voter registrations seen-to-date in Minnesota — likely the result of three events occurring on the same day: the beginning of no-excuses absentee voting; the launch of a new tool by Facebook reminding users to register to vote; and the eve of the first presidential debate. This includes both new registrations and updates to existing registrations. The previous single-day record was 7,602 online voter registrations on March 1, 2016.
“I’m challenging the people of Minnesota to return our state back to number one in voter turnout in the country, and these historic online voter registration numbers are a positive sign that Minnesotans are preparing to step up to the challenge,” said Secretary Simon. “While Minnesota has over 3.1 million registered voters, an additional 800,000 citizens are eligible, but have not yet registered to vote. I encourage all eligible Minnesotans to visit mnvotes.org and register to vote today.”
The record-setting online voter registration announcement comes the day before National Voter Registration Day (NVRD), which is Tuesday, September 27 — a national non-partisan voter registration awareness campaign to encourage voter participation and increase awareness about how to register to vote. Secretary Simon serves on the NVRD Steering Committee for 2015-2016.
Tomorrow morning, on Voter Registration Day in Minnesota, Secretary Simon will visit South High School in Minneapolis to speak with students about the importance of voting and civic engagement. He will speak to a Government and Economics Class and meet with student election judges. In the afternoon, he will speak at Voterpalooza at the University of Minnesota.
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