As the deadline to register to vote in New York state’s presidential primary nears, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday an unprecedented surge in voter registration through the state’s online voter registration system.

MyDMV, New York state’s online voter registration system, processed more than 40,883 voter registration applications within a 10-day period between March 10 and March 20, according to a press release from Cuomo’s office. About half — 20,889 — of those proposals came from first-time voters, according to the release.

The deadline to register to vote in the New York state primary is March 25. The primary will be held on April 19.

A record number of voters registered on March 18, according to the release. This was three days after Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio had primary races that resulted in Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) dropping out of the presidential race.

“Our online voter registration portal is key in this administration’s efforts to knock down barriers to democracy and encourage more participation in the electoral process,” Cuomo said in the release.

Onondaga County is also seeing high rates of voter registration. As of Feb. 16, 30,000 people registered to vote in the county.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a strong lead ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in New York state, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average, which has Clinton up by nearly 40 points.

On the Republican side, business mogul Donald Trump is also ahead of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) by nearly 40 points, according to FiveThirtyEight.

A survey spearheaded by Syracuse University’s Student Voter Registration Project found that 77 percent of SU students are registered to vote and are willing to participate in the general election.

Published on March 23, 2016 at 12:25 am

Contact Rachel: rsandler@syr.edu