Election day is six weeks away and if you want to vote in the upcoming presidential election, you need to make sure you’re registered.
September 22 is National Voter Registration Day, a day set aside to make citizens aware if they’re not registered to vote, now is the time to do it.
October 5 is the last day you can register to vote in the November 3 General Election. With a historic presidential election approaching, every eligible American voter should exercise his or her right to vote.
Where to register
In 2016, Georgia enacted automatic voter registations through the Department of Driver Services (DDS). “When they update the license they automatically send us the information and we register you to vote,” said Manning. However, she says the information doesn’t always get to local registrars and, “if it doesn’t get to us, you don’t get registered.”
Election officials urge voters to check on their voter registration status ahead of election day, especially those who registered through DDS.
“Give us a couple of weeks and then call and check with us to make sure that we got the information. Because even though we do have motor-voter and you can register to vote through DDS, sometimes that information doesn’t get to us,” she said in a recent interveiw with WRWH News. “We are the ones that register you to vote.”
There are other ways you can register to vote in Georgia, according to the Secretary of State’s Office:
- Download, complete, and mail a voter registration application.
- You can go to your local county board of registrars’ office or election office, public library, public assistance office, recruitment office, schools, and other government offices for a mail-in registration form.
- College students can obtain Georgia voter registration forms, or the necessary forms to register in any state in the U.S., from their school registrar’s office or from the office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs.
To register to vote you must:
- Be a citizen of the United States
- Be a legal resident of the county
- Be at least 17 1/2 years of age to register and 18 years of age to vote
- Not be serving a sentence for conviction of a felony involving moral turpitude*
- Have not been found mentally incompetent by a judge
If you haven’t voted in a while and you want to check your registration status you can go online to https://www.mvp.sos.ga.gov/MVP/mvp.do.
Dean Dyer of WRWH Radio News contributed to this report
