By CRAIG FREILICH

St. Lawrence County’s Board of Elections says a surge in new voter registrations came in toward the end of March due to the new online registration system provided by the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

“I think it’s fantastic,” said Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Jenny Bacon.

Bacon reports that 144 of the 453 new registrations made March 1 to 28 came by way of the MyDMV web site, compared with only 244 total new registrations March 1 to 28 last year, without the DMV online facility.

“It’s an open opportunity,” Bacon said. “This is what we come to work for.

“I hope that the new voters take the time to vote,” she said.

The April 19 presidential primary will be the first opportunity for the new voters to exercise their voting rights, when the political parties choose who will be representing them on the ballot in November in the race for president.

Bacon said that one batch of registrations reported to the county was delayed because the system was “overwhelmed by the volume.” That was the source of the complaint made by Republican Election Commissioner Tom Nichols, who told us last week that the information that was transmitted to Canton had been sporadic. “There are a number of individuals requesting services from us who say they have registered online but we’ve not received information from the system,” he said then.

“We want to encourage people to access” their rights to vote, Nichols said, but for the online DMV system to work for voters, “improvements need to be made.”

But Bacon said the service seemed to be operating normally now.

Bacon said she believed the system seemed to be a success largely because of its convenience, “and that’s been what people look for.”

Statewide, between March 10 and March 20, MyDMV, the state's only online voter registration system, processed more than 40,883 voter registration applications, including 20,889 from first-time voters. MyDMV also set an all-time record on Friday, March 18 with 13,961 voter registration applications received, including 7,128 from first-time voters, according to a press release from Gov. Cuomo’s office.

Nichols said first-time registrants had to be registered by March 25 to vote April 19.

That registration period was not for those who are already registered. It is designed to prevent what Nichols called “party jumping,” where a voter might attempt to change party registration before a primary just to vote in the primary and then change it back after the primary.

Nichols said for that reason all party registrations are frozen from the first of the year through the general election in November, except for new registrations.