Arizona’s Low Voter Pre-Registration Numbers

In Arizona, 17-year-olds are eligible to pre-register to vote if they will be 18 by the next general election. Upon reaching 18 years of age, students who pre-register are automatically registered to vote.

According to The Civics Center’s analysis, only approximately 2,527 of 17-year-olds in Arizona have taken advantage of the early registration law as of mid-2019. That represents just about 2.69% of the 17-year-olds in the state. The early registration numbers are based on reports collected from county officials reflecting registration levels in July-September 2019.

In all Arizona counties -- except for Maricopa and Pima, the two largest counties -- fewer than 100 eligible high school juniors and seniors were pre-registered. Maricopa is the largest county in the state. Its pre-registration rate in July-September 2019 was 3.15%. Pima is the second-largest county in Arizona, and its mid-2019 pre-registration rate was 3.35%. Pinal County, the third-largest in the state, reported only a 0.15% pre-registration rate. In contrast, Graham County has the third-smallest population of 17-year-olds and an 18.4% pre-registration rate. La Paz County and Santa Cruz County did not respond to requests for pre-registration data, and the number of 17-year-olds in these counties were not included in the “total” combined number of all 17-year-olds in the state.

Student and district efforts both have the capacity to greatly increase high school voter registration.  In 2018, Phoenix Union High School District implemented a two-week-long Participatory Budgeting Project that registered 1,870 students to vote. They also registered 500 students during National Voter Registration Day in 2018. 

Arizona Counties Based on Pre-Registration Data

Based on data provided from the United States Census Bureau and individual counties.  Counties without pre-registration numbers did not provide data in response to our requests.