Pa. makes voter registration data more accessible to the public

• Jordan Wilkie/WITF
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  As the democracy reporter for WITF, I will cover any kind of story that has to do with how we govern ourselves. That will include doing a lot of election coverage about how to access the ballot, how public officials administer elections, the technology used to run and secure elections, and the laws that govern it all.
  
  My work will also include accountability coverage for elected officials that use their positions to then undermine democratic institutions, like the legislators that voted against the certification of the presidential election results on January 6, 2021. If that weren’t enough, I foresee covering some local government decisions, fights over public records and transparency, and some candidate coverage around the major elections. As seen in my coverage of immigrant of LGBTQ+ communities, I also report on the consequences of elections for minority groups.

 Godofredo A. Vásquez / AP

In this file photo, an election worker sorts mail-in ballots in Reno, Nev., on Nov. 5, 2024.

Pennsylvania now has a visual way to track how counties take care of their voter rolls. As part of a multi-year push to make election data more accessible to the public, Pennsylvania’s Department of State launched a new voter registration data dashboard.  

The data has been publicly available for several years but was previously in more cumbersome formats. People can now easily see summary data on how many Pennsylvanians are registered to vote for which party and by Congressional, state Senate, or state House districts. The department’s new dashboard also tracks net change in registration, dating back to January 2024.  

“The Commonwealth’s voter registration rolls are continuously changing as Pennsylvanians register to vote, move, pass away, or update their registration information,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in a news release.  

Though the Department of State manages the database for voter registration, each county individually is responsible for its own voter records.   

“County election officials regularly review reliable sources of information, including death records, U.S. Postal Service change-of-address information, and interstate voter registration data to identify records that may require updating,” Schmidt said.  

Viewers of the dashboard will see patterns in voter registration, such as spikes in the month before an election, and voters being removed in the months afterward. That’s because political parties and pro-voter groups ramp up registration drives going into elections. Then, after elections, state and federal laws dictate that voters who have been inactive in two consecutive federal general election cycles be removed from the rolls.  

The Department of State said it plans to update the registration dashboard on the first business day of each week. The Department of State also publishes weekly voter registration statistics, historical election data, annual voter registration reports, election directives and guidance, and other data on its site. 

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