How To Register to Vote: Deadlines Loom

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Red-letter days for would-be voters are fast approaching.

There are two deadlines — Oct. 10 and Oct. 24 — for registering to vote. Citizens can register to vote in Onondaga County in two ways: by filling out a mail-in voter registration application and sending it to the Onondaga County Board of Elections, or by going in person to the local board of elections or any state agency that complies with the National Voter Registration Act.

For mail-in registrations, the deadline is Oct. 10. To register in person, the deadline is Oct. 24 at the board of elections office. The office is on the 15th floor of the John H. Mulroy Civic Center in downtown Syracuse. Voters who mail in their registration must bring picture identification to the polls with them on Election Day, Nov. 4.

The board of elections office in Onondaga County receives a lot of questions about voter registration leading up to the election, said Edward F. Ryan, the Democratic commissioner of the elections board.

“The most common questions we get are: `Where am I registered to vote? How do I register to vote? I’m going to be out of town on Election Day, how do I get an absentee ballot?’” Ryan said.

Absentee ballots are for people who are unable to get to their polling place on Election Day. Voters can get absentee ballots by sending a letter to the local board of elections and requesting an absentee ballot. The last day the letter may be postmarked is Oct. 28.

Like voter registration, absentee ballots can be either mailed or hand-delivered to the board of elections. The deadlines differ from the registration deadlines. Mailed absentee ballots can be postmarked through Nov. 3. They must be received by the board of elections no later than seven days after the election. They can be hand-delivered through Election Day, Nov. 4.

Organizations other than the board of elections that can also register people to vote. One, for example, is the New York Public Interest Research Group, called NYPIRG. It is an organization largely of college students that, among other things, registers people to vote across the state.

The Syracuse NYPIRG branch mainly serves Syracuse University and the SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry, said Cliff Barragan, project coordinator of the branch. NYPIRG does some off-campus work as well, registering people to vote in the surrounding communities. The organization goes out on local campuses with clipboards and registers people to vote in the time leading up to the election.

“I think it’s really important for there to be easy access for voter registration because people’s lives are becoming increasingly busy. We just go out and try to make it super-easy for people to register,” Barragan said.

The organization has gotten about 300 new-voter cards so far. Most of the students are registering to vote here, Barragan said. But, he said, some want to fill out absentee ballots, particularly if they live in swing states like Pennsylvania or Ohio.

Those who want to cast absentee ballots in other states, Barragan said, should contact the boards of elections in their home states or home counties or check online for information from those states.

To keep voters from casting more than one ballot, board of elections commissioners will remove new voters from other polls that they may already be registered for, so they cannot vote more than once.

For more information about voter registration and absentee ballots in Onondaga County, visit http://www.ongov.net/Board_of_Elections/home.html.

(Jamie Munks is a senior with dual majors in newspaper journalism and political science.)

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