How do you register to vote? How to change parties in Pennsylvania ahead of the presidential primary?
Deadlines loom to register to vote or switch political parties ahead of the presidential primary election in Pennsylvania.
Christopher Borick, political science professor and director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College, said unlike most presidential primary seasons, this year Pennsylvania has "a realistic chance of being relevant in terms of having an impact on the (presidential) nomination."
Pennsylvania has a closed primary election, meaning only voters registered as Republicans or Democrats can cast a ballot in their respective party's race.
Pa. presidential primary field set at 9
How to register to vote in Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania deadline to vote in this year's presidential primary election is March 28.
Pennsylvania began last year allowing voter registration and registration changes, including party affiliation, to be done online at register.votesPA.com. Voters can also check their registration status at www.pavoterservices.state.pa.us and watch a video on how to navigate the online process.
Registering to vote and making changes can also be done in person, including at Northampton County Voter Registration at 670 Wolf Ave. in Easton or the Lehigh County office at 17 S. Seventh St. in Allentown.
Voters can also print and fill out a form and mail it in.
The online process has helped get about 166,000 voters registered as of last week, up from about 100,000 in mid-February, Pennsylvania Department of State spokeswoman Wanda Murren said.
She encourages registering ahead of the deadline, as submitting an application marks the start of the registration process that is completed in each county's voter registration office.
"No one is registered as soon as they get off of that site," Murren said.
What's at stake
On the Republican side, the role the state's primary plays may be that of spoiler, as the GOP establishment opposed to leading Republican candidate Donald Trump tries to block his path to the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination for Election Day in November.
Put it this way," Borick said of Pennsylvania's 71 delegates, "they might not determine if one of the candidates remaining is the nominee, but they can certainly have an impact on blocking Donald Trump from going to 1,237 delegates, which is the majority needed to win on the first ballot.
On the Democratic site, "Certainly Hillary Clinton's in a very strong position in terms of the number of delegates that she's amassed and the lead she's built over Bernie Sanders," Borick said. "He's vowed to stay in to the convention, therefore he'll be fighting state-to-state, so there should be a contest still on by the time it comes to Pennsylvania."
In Northampton County, where voters say they identify with scores of political agendas, the action seems decidedly on the Republican side as the April 26 primary approaches.
The county's ranks of registered Democrats grew from 92,453 on Oct. 28, 2015, just before the most-recent general election, to 93,551 as of Wednesday, according to Northampton County Voter Registration. That's an addition of 1,098 Democrats, or a growth rate of 1.2 percent.
Republicans more than doubled the growth rate of Democrats in Northampton County, going from 64,842 to 66,959 over that span. That's 2,117 more Republicans eligible to vote in the primary, or 3.3 percent more than last fall.
"I suspect that we'll see a lot of campaign activity in this state," Borick said of Pennsylvania, including in population centers such as the Lehigh Valley.
He'd be "very surprised" if all of the remaining presidential candidates don't visit the state, he said, "which is odd for us because almost always the race is almost over as it gets to us."
Pennsylvania Voter Registration Mail Application
Political parties in Northampton County
Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.