Action to take by today Tuesday Oct. 9 to assure your registration if you vote in COLORADO, FLA, GEORGIA, PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO, NEW MEXICO, TEX, MICHIGAN, LA, KENTUCKY, ILLINOIS, IND, HAWAII, D.C., ARK, ARIZONA.
Are you properly registered for voting where you live? Have you moved and have a new address since you last voted?
If you intend to vote a regular ballot that gets tallied on Election day, you need to be properly registered to vote by today in any of these states — and if you have changed addresses since last voting, then you need to update your address with Election officials.
Otherwise you may end up voting a placebo ballot. If your registration is not in order, you can easily be diverted by poll workers over to a "provisional" ballot, which literally gets set aside until several days after Election day is over when the registration status gets rechecked.
Other states have different deadlines, some a few days later, some already passed (more info below).
In the last presidential election in 2008, Ohio was one of the top 3 states for the number of provisional ballots used: 204,000 cast, and nearly 1 in 5 of them discarded. 40,000 ballots were disqualified, sometimes because a poll worker directed a voter to the wrong table (precinct) in the school gym or church basement.
TWO special checks to mention, one for first time vote registrants. After the jump.
With all the purposeful confusion about ID for voting, know the ins and outs for your state, your situation.
PENNSYLVANIA – The Court last week threw out a broad requirement that registered voters in Pa. need specific photo ID for voting. The judge deferred the requirement until after this election cycle is over, BUT he permitted the (eventual) requirement for ID to be stated verbally by pollworkers and in messaging to voters -- even though it won't be mandated this time. So you WILL hear a lot about the requirement when you go to your precinct on Nov. 6; your answer will be: I don't (or I do) have that kind of ID with me, and "I can still vote a regular ballot regardless."
That's the judge's ruling; it has the force of law.
Keep reading if you are registering FOR THE FIRST TIME, in Pennsylvania or in any other state.
The federal HAVA law of 2002 (stands for Help America Vote Act) contains language that a new voter registrant in a state is expected to produce some identifying information for registering, particularly if she or he is not registering in person with election officials. For some state the identifier is simply writing in your SSN.
So no matter your state, pay attention to the identification required on the voter form. If you register remotely, by mail form or online, instead of in person, and if specific identifying info or documents (e.g., photocopy of specified ID, or for example, fill in your SSN) is requested by the remote registration form, be sure to either (1) supply it when you mail in the form OR (2) expect otherwise to present additional ID when you show up to vote — even if your state is not a photo ID state. HAVA (federal statute) sets this ID convention for remote registrations for first-time in state voters.
If your identifying info was already supplied at registration, or if you have voted before in other elections in the state, then of course your ID requirements are the same as everyone else in your state, and no more thorough or stricter than that.
Here is a good resource for looking up state by state info on the registration and voting procedures – absentee or othewise.
Ohioans, take the pledge for no placebo ballot. Your secretary of state, John Husted, has sent an absentee ballot application, for the first time, to every registered voter in the state. As the Cincinnati Enquirer has reported, that initiative can produce extra provisional ballots if a person automatically returns the application and then goes to vote at the poll Nov. 6 instead of mailing in the absentee ballot they will receive. See Absentee Ballot Program: Blessing or Disaster.
Don't give sneaky John Husted the last laugh. If you prefer a mail-in ballot, by all means use the application. Otherwise, ignore the application, set the unsolicited mailer aside, and then head to early voting!