The advantages of a civil registry include the following:
- Information collection for the voter registration process is relatively inexpensive because the
key voter registration information already has been collected and compiled for the civil registry.
To a considerable extent, this is simply a matter of another department of government carrying the
costs that otherwise would be borne by the election administration.
- Similar to a continuous list, the data in a civil registry normally is updated regularly, thereby
enabling the generation of a current voters list on short notice.
- Again similar to a continuous list, the costs of maintaining a civil registry are spread across the
life of the government.
- Governments that use civil registry typically place a very high priority on ensuring that it
provides reliable, up-to-date information. Voters lists produced from such registries are similarly
characterised by high accuracy and reliability.
- Because the civil registry is updated regularly, it provides significant lead time in confirming
the accuracy of the information included in the registry.
- The contents of the civil registry can be used as the client list for any and all government
services. With appropriate privacy protections (e.g., as used in Sweden), even private sector
organisations can have access to the data and avoid the costs of maintaining client lists of their
own. Overall efficiencies in governance can be achieved.
