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.
Reporting: Organizations can generate a report by clicking a
link in the organization’s online account. This on-demand report will provide
the status of all successfully submitted applications by transaction number
within the reporting period specified.
As mentioned above, the PAOVR WebAPI
login page may be accessed at https://paovrwebapi.votespa.com/SUREWebAPIAdmin
Key PA OVR Web API documentation:
This page was last modified April 2021.