The right to vote must be seen as the right to participate in public affairs in a direct way. Free and fair elections can not be undertaken without the proper verification that voters fulfill the legal requirements to vote.. Voter registers must be seen as catalogues of citizens who have a right to vote.  Therefore, voter registers are fundamental for any voting system, and for any electoral legal system. Usually all the requirements that have to be met by citizens are established in the Constitution.  Electoral laws have to regulate, design, and update such requirements (which have to be non-discriminatory).  All the procedures related to the voter’s registration have to be complete and inclusive.

Bearing this in mind, voter registers generate certainty and security and have, therefore, a key role in establishing and consolidating a democratic regime. As well, voter registers can promote more enthusiastic participation of citizens within electoral processes. There is a general trend towards a more sophisticated development of voter registers from a technical point of view.  Such a trend has to be consolidated by electoral officials and political parties working together in order to generate public participation campaigns aimed at all the people. 

However, a voters register is not only important but also very expensive.  The registration of voters and the production of voters’ lists usually represent 50% of the electoral expenditures as a whole.  There are many different things that affect such expenditures, among which the kind of system used to register voters, the design of electoral identification, the managerial abilities of electoral authorities, and the social, economic, and demographic characteristics in each single country are important in order to achieve a sound balance between the costs and the efficiency of voters registers.

In order to achieve such objectives, there are many different kinds of electoral registrars.  They can be grouped once questions as follows have been answered: Is voting mandatory? What kind of electoral authority is in charge? Registers can be mandatory, voluntary, centralized, de-centralized, permanent, non-permanent, independent or dependent of higher electoral authorities who are in charge of both creation and updating of the voter register. Among such higher authorities are electoral authorities, demographic registrars, civil registrars, and so on.