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Registering To Vote Online In PA Is Now Even Easier

By Cherri Gregg

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The deadline to register to vote in Pennsylvania's April primary is a week away.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth was at City Hall today to roll out a new feature to make it easier to register online.

Online voter registration has made it faster for roughly 225,000 Pennsylvanians to either sign up or update voter registration rolls. The only snafu: voters with no signature on file with PennDOT still had to mail in a form, but not anymore.

"Now we have an opportunity to do a complete transaction from beginning to end and do so electronically," said Pedro Cortes, Secretary of the Commenwealth.

Cortes says users should sign their name with black ink on white paper, then they can take a photo with their phone an upload it. The state also launched "Everyone Votes Pa," an effort to educate new voters on the process.

"From registration to the actual experience at their polling place," says Cortes, who notes his agency will give presentations at colleges and universities across the Commonwealth beginning next week. "We want to increase voter registration and the number of eligible voters who go to the polls."

Mayor Jim Kenney joined the secretary for the announcement underscoring the importance of the primary election.

"People argue that my vote doesn't matter, but if you don't vote it doesn't matter for sure," he says.

Rosalyn McPherson, president of the Urban League of Philadelphia, says their organization's office will be open and available to help voters with no access to a computer to register online.

"It's that important to us," says McPherson, "this is one of the most important elections of our lifetime."

Log onto register.votespa.com by March 28th to register to vote in the April primary.

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