The continuous list has a number of disadvantages:

• The election authority needs a larger permanent staff than it would with a periodic list. It will therefore need a larger budget.
• Many permanent employees of the election authority will be required to have advanced skills and training. They are likely to need ongoing professional development.
• More employees and more skills may equal a more professional approach to election management. However, staff size and professionalism will have budget implications. The continuous register flattens the cost spike but may not make voter registration less expensive overall. Instead it spreads the costs throughout the electoral cycle.
• The election authority needs staff having technical expertise, particularly with computer hardware and software, to maintain and continually update information.
• Citizens must comply with requests to provide information updates, or the election authority should have effective and efficient information-sharing arrangements with other agencies. Otherwise the number of revisions could be excessive in the final stage of list preparation.
• The election authority must diligently maintain the accuracy of the list. Serious problems have arisen in countries where maintenance of the register of voters has lagged or been sloppy. Buildup of deadwood on a continuous list represents a potential electoral fraud or, at the least, an administrative scandal waiting to happen.
• Diligence is also crucial in ensuring the integrity of the voters list. In many jurisdictions, citizens are sensitive about any sharing of their personal information among different government bodies. In collecting information and updating it for a continuous register, the election authority accepts responsibility for maintaining the security of the information. If it fails to meet that responsibility, its reputation as an independent and professional organization may suffer.
• Updating often requires extensive cooperation between different branches of government. This is possible only with an appropriate administrative structure and culture.
• With a continuous register, demographic changes of a staggering order must be identified and tracked. By some estimates, between 20 and 25 percent of people in large urban centres move in any one year. Some 2 to 4 percent of the electorate will reach voting age during the year, and a similar percentage will die or cease to be eligible to vote. Given the cumulative change over the four- or five-year period of a typical electoral cycle, it is a daunting task to keep a continuous list up to date. Fortunately, the demographic changes are not random. They can be tracked by targeting certain portions of the electorate for greater attention.
• With all continuous voter registration systems, there is a gap between the time when a change occurs and the time when it is recorded in the voters list. The gap is relatively long for some updating methods, with the result that the voters list will be weak in terms of currency. A solution to this problem is to allow registration on election day. This can effectively eliminate concerns about currency since all voters have the opportunity to bring their registration information up to date at the polls. But there are disadvantages:
• One purpose of having a voters list in the first place is to separate the function of verifying voter eligibility from actual balloting. If large numbers of voters register at the polls, this undermines the utility of the register and may dramatically increase the time it takes to cast a ballot.
• Another issue is how voters prove their identity. If registration occurs at the polling station, there must be a very high level of certainty that the voter is who he or she claims to be, and meets all eligibility requirements.