September 3, 2024
Voting in the 2024 presidential election starts this week.
Yes, I realize it’s only September.
Are you sure your voter registration is even valid?
It might not be.
First – let’s talk about voting.
This Friday – the first absentee and mail in ballots in the country will be sent out. They are going to voters in the critical swing state of North Carolina. But that’s not the only state starting the voting process this month.
Dozens of other states will be sending their mail in and absentee ballots in September including other critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada and Michigan. And on September 20th – Virginia – will become the first state to start in-person early voting.
But!!!!
Your voter registration may not be valid anymore.
Obviously, you have to be registered u-s citizen in order to vote in any election in the United States. But because the constitution says each state is allowed to conduct its election in the way it sees fit – we have 50 different rules for registering and 50 different rules for how the voting process works. And because of that every state has different laws about how they maintain their voting rolls….basically the list of all the eligible voters in the state.
See here’s the thing – your state regularly purges that list of voters if – for example – the voter has moved or changed their name or has passed away or has otherwise become ineligible to vote. But recently – certain states have become aggressive in purging their voter rolls and either by accident or according to voting rights groups — on purpose — have actually removed valid, legal voters from the list making them ineligible to vote. Even though they are. And because those voters are not notified if they show up to vote on election day they may not be able to participate.
But – you can save yourself the headache right now. If voting in this upcoming election is important to you — it would be worth 10 minutes of your time *today* to check to make sure your voter registration is valid. All you have to do is go to vote.org – click am I registered to vote. Do not fill this out…scroll down to this part and find your state. I’ll just click on the first one Alabama…this will take you to the official secretary of state website for the state of Alabama. You enter your information and it’ll tell you if your registration is active and valid. If it’s not – you need to fix that like right now. Several registration deadlines are going to start creeping up on you and if you miss them – then you will not be able to vote.
