Register to Vote
The National Mail Voter Registration Form can be used to register to vote, to update your registration information due to a change of name, make a change of address or to register to vote with a political party. Note: After filling out this form, you must send it to a state or local election office for processing. See state-specific instructions included in the form for additional information.
The National Mail Voter Registration Form — register to vote in English
Formulario nacional de inscripción de votantes — register vote in Espanol
使用本明信片表格和指南在您的 所在州登记投票 — register vote in Chinese
このはがき用紙とガイドをもとに 自分の居住する州で 投票登録を行なってください — register to vote in Japanese
주정부 유권자 등록 신청을 위한 우편엽서 양식 및 안내서 — register vote in Korean
Raise Your Vote
Online voter registration tool for state-by-state information on upcoming elections, important deadlines, and what to bring with you when you vote.
The League of Women Voters
For voter information, civic participation, and current public policy issues such as election reform, campaign finance reform and health care.
Provisional Ballots
Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to ensure every vote was counted by allowing voters to cast provisional ballots if there is some question about a voter’s eligibility. Provisional ballots may be utilized when the voter’s name is not on the voter list, the voter’s eligibility is challenged pursuant to state law, the voter is in the wrong polling place, or the voter cannot provide the ID required by federal or state law. However, HAVA leaves counting provisional ballots up to the discretion of the states.
Serving Military and Overseas U.S. Voters
Voting help for active-duty members of the Armed Forces, Merchant Marine, Public Health Service, NOAA, and their family members. Also, for United States citizens who are living outside the U.S. for work, school or other reasons.
Who is my my Representative?
Find your congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives and get contact information.
Who are my Senators?
Find information about your Senators on a variety of topics, including biographical characteristics and Senate service records. Also a listing of Senators’ suites and phone numbers.
Who are my Senators?
Find information about, send questions, comments, concerns, or well-wishes to the President or his staff, by phone, mail or email.
Register Vote Education
Public Citizen Congress Watch
Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division champions consumer interests before the U.S. Congress and serves as a government watchdog. We engage in public education and advocacy, and are focused on the following:
– Strengthening health, safety and financial protections. Our work in this area covers consumer financial protection, patient safety, consumer product safety, auto safety and worker safety.
– Ensuring access to the courts to hold corporations accountable for wrongdoing. Our work in this area covers forced arbitration, whistleblower protections, medical liability, preserving state consumer laws (pre-emption) and court secrecy.
– Strengthening our democracy by exposing and combating the harmful impact of money in politics. Our work in this area focuses on money in politics, government ethics, lobbying reform and open government.
US Congress on the Internet
The Library of Congress Federal legislative information freely available to the Internet public. Search Bill Text for multiple Congresses, Appropriations Bills, Public Laws, Roll Call Votes, contact members of Congress, and find State Legislature websites. Learn about the Legislative Process, Supreme Court, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and more historical documents.
Major Political Parties
Throughout most of the 20th century, although the Republican and Democratic parties alternated in power at a national level, some states were so overwhelmingly dominated by one party that nomination was usually tantamount to election. This was especially true in political party strength in the South, where the Republican Party was virtually nonexistent for the best part of a century, from the end of Reconstruction in the late 1870s to the late 1960s. Conversely, the New England states of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire were Republican bastions, as were some Midwestern states like Iowa and North Dakota.
However, in the 1970s and 1980s, the increasingly conservative Republican Party gradually overtook the Democrats, whose support had been eroded by the Civil rights movement and its perceived liberal social policies. In the 1990s, the Republicans finally overtook the Democrats in holding majorities in statehouses and governorships in the South. In New England, the opposite trend took place; the former Republican strongholds of Maine and Vermont became solidly Democratic, as did formerly Republican areas of New Jersey, New York, and other states.
Currently, the majority of the overall number of seats held in the state legislatures has been switching between the two parties every few years. As of the U.S. gubernatorial elections of 2010, the Republican party holds an outright majority of approximately 440 with 3,890 seats (53% of total) compared to the Democratic party’s number of 3,450 (47% of total) seats elected on a partisan ballot. Of the 7,382 seats in all of the state legislatures combined, independents and third parties account for only 15 members, not counting the 49 members of the Nebraska Legislature, which is the only legislature in the nation to hold non-partisan elections to determine its members. Due to the results of the 2010 elections, Republicans took control of an additional 19 state legislative chambers, giving them majority control of both chambers in 25 states versus the Democrats’ majority control of both chambers in only 16 states, with 8 states having split or inconclusive control of both chambers (not including Nebraska); previous to the 2010 elections, it was Democrats who controlled both chambers in 27 states versus the Republican party having total control in only 14 states, with eight states divided and Nebraska being nonpartisan.
Democratic National Committee
Democrats stand for an abiding faith in the judgment of hardworking American families, and a commitment to helping the excluded, the disenfranchised and the poor strengthen our nation by earning themselves a piece of the American Dream. We remember that our country was sculpted by immigrants and slaves, their children and grandchildren. Even today, it is our diversity above all else that provides us with our enduring strength. Democrats believe that each of us has an obligation to each other, to our neighbors and our communities. Each of us has a role to play in creating our future — and while we have made great progress as a nation, we know that our work is never done.
Republican National Committee
Republicans believe individuals, not government, can make the best decisions; all people are entitled to equal rights; and decisions are best made close to home. These basic principles are as true today as they were when the Party was founded. For all of the extraordinary leaders the Party has produced throughout its rich history, Republicans understand that everyday people in all 50 states and territories remain the heart and soul of our Party. With a core belief in the primacy of individuals, the Republican Party, since its inception, has been at the forefront of the fight for individuals’ rights in opposition to a large, intrusive government.
Constitution Party
The Constitution Party is a paleo-conservative political party in the United States. The party’s goal as stated in its own words is “to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundations.” The party puts a large focus on immigration, calling for stricter penalties towards illegal immigrants and a moratorium on legal immigration until all federal subsidies to immigrants are discontinued. The party absorbed the American Independent Party, originally founded for George Wallace’s 1968 presidential campaign. It has some substantial support from the Christian Right.
Libertarian Party
The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration across borders, and non-interventionism in foreign policy, i.e., avoiding foreign military or economic entanglements with other nations and respect for freedom of trade and travel to all foreign countries. The platform preamble outlines the party’s goal: “As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.”
Reform Party of the USA
The Reform Party of the United States of America (abbreviated Reform Party USA or RPUSA, generally known simply as the Reform Party) platform includes the following: passing a Balanced Budget Amendment, campaign finance reform, enforcement of existing immigration laws and opposition to illegal immigration, opposition to free trade agreements, term limits on U.S. Representatives and Senators, direct election of the United States President by popular vote, federal elections held on weekends. A noticeable absence from the Reform Party platform has been what are termed social issues, including abortion and gay rights.
Socialist Party USA
The Socialist Party strives to establish a radical democracy that places people’s lives under their own control — a non-racist, classless, feminist socialist society — where working people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically-controlled public agencies; where full employment is realized for everyone who wants to work; where workers have the right to form unions freely, and to strike and engage in other forms of job actions; and where the production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. We believe socialism and democracy are one and indivisible.
