George Floyd

Voter Registration Surged During BLM Protests, Study Finds

The rise, largely among Democrats and independents, came after a steep decline amid the coronavirus pandemic

In this June 14, 2020, file photo, a protester holds a sign that says "Vote" with an American Flag as they march through the streets of New York City.
Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images

Voter registrations fell sharply amid the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, but shot up in June amid nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd, according to a new analysis.

TargetSmart, a Democratic political data firm, analyzed local election officials' registration data against their voter file and found a surge of Democratic and unaffiliated voter registrations in June, amid the large Black Lives Matter protests across the country.

"Despite a full or partial lockdown in large swaths of the country for much of the month, voter registration began to rebound as people took to the streets to protest," the firm said in its analysis.

In the first half of June, 1.1 million voters registered. By comparison, 1.5 million voters registered in the entire month of June 2016. Not all states have reported the entire month of June's registration data, hence the partial national data.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

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