Pennsylvania’s Online Voter Registration Web application Programming Interface (PA OVR WebAPI)

The Pennsylvania Department of State has developed a secure internet facing service to which approved Posting Entities can consume this web-based service from their custom voter registration applications (custom VRApp). We are also continuously seeking comments on the documentation and process.  Please submit comments to ra-voterreg@pa.gov.

Goal: The goal of the PA OVR WebAPI is to provide a programmatic interface to the Department of State’s Online Voter Registration System in order to increase access to voter registration as well as reduce processing times.

General Information: 

Registration: An organization wishing to use PA OVR WebAPI must register with the Department of State’s Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation at https://paovrwebapi.votespa.com/SUREWebAPIAdmin/. All organizations must also sign the Pennsylvania Online Voter Registration Web API Terms of Use - Version 1.0 August 2016.  

Authentication: Organizations will receive an authentication access key in staging before they are approved for an access key in production. A production access key will be provided once the organization’s application has satisfied all testing requirements and agreed to the PA OVR Web API Terms of Use. The access key will be used to authenticate each organization for security and reporting purposes.

Sandbox Testing:  All organizations will need to submit their custom VRApp to the Department of State for review and testing to ensure their underlying application collects all necessary data elements as outlined in the PA OVR Web API Field Definitions document below. The PA OVR WebAPI will be available to users in either interactive and/or batch mode.  Custom VRApps must be tested and approved in either or both, interactive and batch, modes.

The Department of State’s PA OVR Web API currently resides in two environments, Staging and Production. The Staging environment is used for a variety of purposes, including:

• User Review of new features and ongoing bug fixes
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of new features and ongoing bug fixes
• Deployment Testing
• Demos
• Posting Entity testing and approval

Meanwhile, the PROD or production environment is for operational functions of LIVE data involving Voter Information and its associated systems.

All testing will occur against the Department of State’s staging environment. We require all custom VRApps and organizations to successfully submit testing criteria in staging before the Department begins the testing process in our production environment.