Voter registration deadline on Oct. 9
Texans and New Mexicans have only four days left to register to vote in November.
Whether you support President Barack Obama or Gov. Mitt Romney, you will not be able to vote if you don’t register.
According to the El Paso County Elections Administrator Javier Chacon, the number of registered voters isn’t as high as it was for the last presidential election.
In 2008, 387,000 people were registered to vote in El Paso County. This year, only 380,484 people are registered to vote.
He said this number is likely to rise to near-2008 levels by the end of the registration deadline.
To qualify to vote, you must be 18 years old by election day, a U.S. citizen, and cannot be a convicted felon or declared mentally incapacitated by a court of law.
If you meet these qualifications, the next step is to fill out a voter registration application.
In El Paso, an application can be picked up and filled out directly at the El Paso County Voter Registrar’s Office.
Applications can also be filled out online and printed.
Then, the application can be mailed to the registrar’s office.
Finally, the application can be picked up at a library or post office and mailed to the office.
If you choose to mail your application, it must by postmarked by the voter registration deadline of Oct. 9.
The Voter Registrar’s Office is not opened on weekends, but will continue accepting applications until 2 p.m. Tuesday.
If you recently moved, you need to update your voter registration information.
For a county-to-county move, you can inform the registrar’s office of your information change via a new registration application.
You can also change your information while applying for a new driver’s license.
Finally, you can register the new information by going to the Secretary of State’s Voter Registration Name/Address Change website.
However, if you moved from a different county, you must reregister completely.
According to Chacon, registering to vote isn’t the only important step this election period.
“Definitely we encourage everybody to vote, but the most important thing is people go and participate and vote. That is our main goal,” he said.
Below are a few links to assist with the registration process:
To check if you are registered.
