Associated Press
- Voter registration spiked following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
- Vote.org, a nonprofit that allows people to register through its website, told Business Insider that they had 40,771 new voter registrations on the Saturday and Sunday following Ginsburg’s death.
- That’s a 68% increase from the prior Saturday and Sunday.
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After the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week, voter registration surged according to voting advocacy groups.
Vote.org, a nonprofit that allows people to register through its website, told Business Insider that they had 40,771 new voter registrations on the Saturday and Sunday following Ginsburg’s death. That’s a 68% increase from the prior Saturday and Sunday.
Ginsburg died on Friday at the age of 87 due to complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer.
“I do think that the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has galvanized eligible voters, in particular, who understand the role of the Supreme Court and are concerned about the future of civil rights,” Carolyn DeWitt, president of Rock the Vote, told CNBC.
Her death prompted a battle between Republicans and Democrats on who gets to nominate a new justice to fill her seat. Ginsburg’s death came just weeks before the November elections, and Democrats argued it would only be fair to wait until after Election Day, while many Republicans said they’d vote on a nominee before the election. Trump has said he plans to nominate a justice on Saturday.
Vote.org also saw a 118% increase in registration verifications the weekend following Ginsburg's death compared to the previous weekend. A total of 139,046 registration verifications were recorded this past Saturday and Sunday. Additionally, the group reported that 35,288 mail ballot requests on Saturday and Sunday, a 42% increase from the prior weekend.
In a tweet, DeWitt also said the Rock the Vote saw an increase in general web traffic following Ginsburg's death.
"We're running 10x our 2016 NVRD front-end server amount to accommodate the increased traffic to register to vote. Proud of our team," DeWitt said.
A poll from Morning Consult indicated that the importance of the Supreme Court increased for Democratic voters after Ginsburg's death. Three out of five democrats surveyed or 60% now say that the Supreme Court as a "very important" issue compared to only 48% prior to her death. For Republicans, about 54% said the Supreme Court is a "very important" issue for them.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg went head-to-head against Clarence Thomas over his antiabortion stance
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she doesn't agree with some Democratic presidential candidates' ideas to pack the Supreme Court with more justices
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg made her first public appearance since cancer surgery at a concert in her honor, where she was called 'epic and notorious'
- A beauty brand is selling a Ruth Bader Ginsburg lipstick that already has thousands of people ordering it