SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- For the first time in California history, you can now register to vote online.
University of California Santa Barbara students are using this new method to register 10,000 new voters before the voter registration deadline in 31 days.
Last election, they were able to pull it off.
This year, they hope to do it again and this time they have a new tool in their arsenal.
"With 3 million college students in the state of California, many of these races are going to come down to just a few thousand votes," says UCSB student organizer Kat Lockwood.
"So college students can make a huge impact."
College students who are working to get their peers involved politically think the online registration could be the best tool yet.
"A number of other states across the country, over 20 that are passing really strict voter ID laws that are disenfranchising groups of voters, particularly young voters," says Lockwood.
"So in other states where its becoming harder for young people to register to vote, our efforts to implement online voter registration will instead make it much easier for young people to vote"
The state's main website and the CA Secretary of State's Office receives your voter information from many other online registration sites.
Election officials say there is already process to protect against voter fraud, the state sends it to the DMV in each county for verification, and each county election office must verify the person's information as well.
"We match those with Secretary of State's database to ensure it's a unique person," says Santa Barbara County Registrar of Voters Joe Holland.
