Elana Levin

Voter Registration Deadlines Imminent!

So if you read a public policy blog chances are you are registered to vote, right? But are you registered at your latest address? Do you know where your polling place is? Has your state changed its voter identification rules (like in good old Ohio ) requiring you to bring certain kinds of ID to the polls when you weren't required to before?

While you're at it-- is your cubicle-mate registered to vote? Your roomate? Your catsitter?
I am consistently surprised when I ask people if they are registered to vote. Even people who read the news every day can forget to change their registration when they move. Well now's the time to ask everyone that you know because deadlines for registration are imminent.

To find out your state's deadline check out Rock the Vote's website for a complete list.

If you yourself aren't registered yet you can do so with "type, print, sign, stamp and mail" ease via an online form from GoVote.org! Think of your trip to the mailbox as a chance for pre-internet nostalgia (I remember mailing things)...

If you are like me, every year you nag your friends and neighbors about voting. Every election you tell them that it is worth waking up early to vote and that in some states you have the right to take off time from work to vote (CO, IL, KY, MN, NY, WV). So it begs the question: why do we vote on Tuesday anyway? As Rich Benjamin wrote in his blog post about the Why Tuesday? , the Constitution doesn't require voting on Tuesday. The Why Tuesday? site explains:

this election day was established in 1845 by federal law. In those rural, agrarian years, Tuesday was a convenient day for most eligible voters -- rural workers and land-owning gentry -- to journey to the county seat and vote. Congress ruled out other days mostly by default.

Today we live in a different world. The average employed person works 163 more hours than he or she did 20 years ago, or the equivalent of an extra month per year. In addition to longer work days, America's working families also must provide for child care, their children's education and family health care needs. The benefits to rational Election Day alternatives outweigh a blind adherence to history. Maintaining this mid-19th Century relic in a modern economy makes as much sense as Macys restricting business to daylight hours, as shopkeepers did before the arrival of electricity.

This raises a critical question concerning our voting system: Does the weekday on which we vote welcome participation or inhibit it?

Anyone who has ever had to leave work early to vote or find a babysitter can answer that question. The solution that the Why Tuesday? campaign proposes is a two day voting period of Saturday and Sunday. Maybe then America can have voter turnout more in line with all the other Democracies. The debate over why America's voter turnout is so low is ongoing. Feel free to share your theories- personally I think this is one of the great crisies of our times.

Elana Levin: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 7:17 AM, Oct 10, 2006 in Democracy
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