WMOA News

Groups Working To Register, Inform Voters

Posted on: 09/26/2012

The deadline is less than two weeks away for Ohioans to register to vote in the November 6th election. Across the state, efforts are underway to ensure all those who are eligible to vote make it to the polls in November.

Among many organizations - liberal, conservative and otherwise - is the Voter Participation Center. It’s trying to reach out to the 2.8 million Ohioans eligible to vote but not currently registered.

The center’s Gail Kitch says they’re targeting "unmarried women, persons of color and young people under the age of 30. They're a disproportionate number of those who are unregistered, so in Ohio 1,490,000 or so were not registered at the beginning of 2012."

Several lawsuits regarding early voting, ineligible voters and how provisional ballots are counted are under review in federal courts across the state. Mike Brickner with the ACLU of Ohio says that’s why besides helping citizens register, they’re also educating voters on their rights when they go to the polls.

"Ohioans are going to be confused and not know when they are supposed to go vote, what they are supposed to have when they go vote," he states, "so we want to make sure that people are as empowered as possible."

Early voting begins next Tuesday, October 2nd and the deadline to register to vote is the following Tuesday, October 9th.

Secretary of State Jon Husted is allowing people to change their voter registration online, which Brickner says is great for voters. He says as people’s lives get busy, many don’t realize that they need to update information until it’s too late.

"Being able to change that information online is more responsive to the needs of Ohioans and to where the future of voting is going. Where we would like to see that expand even more is to allow people to register online in the first place," Brickner says.

The Secretary of State's website is here.

Contact the Washington County board of elections by phone at (740) 374-6828. The county elections website can be found here.

Some information for this report was provided by the Ohio News Service.