Skip to footer

Is it too late to register to vote? Depends where you live.

Election Day is nearly upon us. Are you ready?

|
Jim Young/REUTERS
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton shake hands at the end of their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday.

With the struggle between businessman Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coming down to the wire, who wouldn’t want to have a say in this year’s historic election?

The deadline to register to vote in November’s election has passed in some states, but in many states, registration is still open. For some southern states, registration deadlines were extended due to hurricane Matthew, with state officials hoping that extending the deadlines will allow more people to participate.

In Florida, where officials have already extended deadlines once, Judge Mark E. Walker set a date for a hearing to determine whether or not registration should be kept open still longer.

"It has been suggested that the issue of extending the voter registration deadline is about politics. Poppycock," he wrote. "This case is about the right of aspiring eligible voters to register and to have their votes counted. Nothing could be more fundamental to our democracy."

Some readers may have already missed their chance: If you live in Alaska, Arizona, Mississippi, or Rhode Island and you are not registered to vote, you are out of luck.

Many others, however, still have a chance to register if they hurry to local Registries of Motor Vehicles, town clerks offices, and in some states, simply go online.

Twelve states and the District of Columbia have registration deadlines, but also allow voters to register on the day of the election. These states include Colorado, Illinois, and Vermont, among others.

In Nevada, mail-in registration forms must be postmarked Oct. 8, but voters can register until Oct.18 if they choose to register in person. In Washington state, voters can register in person until the end of October, and although registration deadlines have passed in Hawaii, early voters can register on the day that they vote between Oct. 25 and Nov. 5.

Tuesday, Oct. 11 is the voter registration deadline for at least twelve states, including Texas, Michigan, and Ohio. Although South Carolina voters hoping to register online missed their deadline by two days, applications postmarked through Oct. 11 will be accepted.

The next few days – from Wednesday, Oct. 12 to Saturday, Oct. 15 – mark registration deadlines for a number of states, from Missouri on Oct. 12 to Delaware on Oct. 15.

Some states allow voters to register online or on site until election day, but for most voters, registering sooner rather than later is preferable.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Is it too late to register to vote? Depends where you live.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/1011/Is-it-too-late-to-register-to-vote-Depends-where-you-live
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe