[Peace-discuss] October 5 is the deadline for voter registration

[Robert Naiman]

Next Tuesday, October 5, is the deadline in Illinois to register to
vote for the November 2 election. Thus, this coming weekend is the
last weekend of registration.

Most politically active folks, obviously, are registered to vote. If
you haven't moved or changed your name since you registered to vote,
you don't need to re-register, so if you are a politically active
person who doesn't move, the fact that this procedure exists may
recede from your awareness.

But if you've ever canvassed in an election in Illinois, and
particularly in a relatively transient community like
Champaign-Urbana, you are probably aware that the fact that Illinois
requires you to register to vote 28 days before an election
effectively disenfranchises a lot of people who move around and are
not very politically engaged. The deadline for voter registration is
not well-publicized, and occurs before media coverage of the campaign
heats up in the few weeks before the election, when more people start
paying attention. Two weeks before the election, some people start to
think: oh, I do care what happens in this election. But then it's too
late to register.

There are blocks in west Urbana, heavily populated by students, where
a voter registration list that is a year old is essentially useless.
That means the population is largely turning over every year, and
there are a lot of people who voted in the last general election who
are ineligible to vote unless they update their registration.

Thus, I think it is a good idea, in the non-partisan interests of
democracy, to do what one can to publicize the deadline.

Please spread the world that October 5 is the deadline for voter registration.

Most of what a person would want to know to register to vote or update
their registration can be found here:

http://www.champaigncountyclerk.com/elections/voter_registration.html

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

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