Millions More Wanted to Vote in 2012, But Couldn’t

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.

— Alex Street, writing in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog.