RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — When first lady Michelle Obama visits North Carolina on Wednesday, she’ll work to get thousands of students at N.C. Central University and East Carolina University fired up about her husband’s re-election bid and to urge them to register their friends to vote.

Voter registration drives are hard work, with volunteers carrying clipboards to search for potential voters, who must fill out paper forms and sign them by hand.

Now the Obama campaign is taking voter registration to a new level of technological savvy bound to attract those just as comfortable with an iPhone as pen and paper.

The campaign’s nationwide voter registration web site, www.GottaRegister.com, also permits people in North Carolina, 10 other states and the District of Columbia to sign their names to a registration form remotely using their smartphone or tablet.

Voter registration forms already can be found on the Internet, but North Carolina voters still have to print, sign and mail them.

The technology from a California-based company lets the applicant’s finger or stylus literally direct a mechanical pen at company offices that writes the person’s identical signature on the voter registration form. The completed form is then mailed automatically to the elections office in the applicant’s county for review. The first forms arrived in county offices this week, according to the State Board of Elections.

• Gary D. Robertson, Associated Press