Check Your Voter Registration -- easy way to do it and help others

[emlev]

MoveOn has a new website called VotePoke where you can check to make sure if you're registered. This is important because MILLIONS of voters are expected to be knocked off the voter rolls this year! Check now and check right before the deadline for your state. (Look up your state's deadline here. Then mark your calendar two weeks before, to give you time to do it.)

After you check your registration at VotePoke, you can use the service to nudge ("poke") others to do the same. You can even track how many people checked their registration as a result of your encouragement.

[geckosfeet]

1. Thanks. Very informative links.

Except I don't like being forced to provide my email address.

[formercia]

13. Get a dummy account at one of the free mail services

use some false name and bio info. I keep a couple just for these situations. You can even have some fun.

[geckosfeet]

14. Yes. But the page designers should make your email address optional.

I don't like pages that lure you in with expectations then lower the boom on you after you get sucked in.

Yes I know that they are providing a service and that they are trying to expand their marketing information.

But there is more than a hint of baiting with that method.

[formercia]

15. They make revenue by selling the data.

Just think. If Millions of people put in bogus info, how valuable would their data be?

Be creative. Have fun.

[snappyturtle]

2. K&R Thank you! This is very important. n/t

[flamingdem]

3. Thanks, this is handy, send it to your spaced out buddies who don't know if they are registered n/t

[emlev]

4. EVERYONE needs to check...

people are being knocked off the voter rolls all over the country.

[Ellipsis]

5. K&R

[barbtries]

6. if i am paranoid about one thing right now,

it's that the republicans are going to steal the presidency AGAIN. this is really good advice. in NC there is a page where you can go to check. i did so last week and guess what? i wasn't there. so i immediately called the board of elections and spoke to a very nice woman who supplied me with my voter number and promised to send me out a new card. she said there were issues with the webpage, but what's to stop those "issues" from extending to election day, at the polls?

i really am paranoid about this. which is how i happened there last week: i'm trying to volunteer to be a poll watcher.

[emlev]

7. Thanks for posting. Here are some thoughts...

If you definitely should have been registered and weren't, it's especially important that others in your county check if they're registered, so that you can try to discern whether this was a fluke or represents a bigger problem. So please use that VotePoke site or other resources to get people to check. You could even make a little flyer and hand it out and post it around town (if you live in a town), post the link to any local websites, announce it at meetings and on local radio call-in shows, that sort of thing.

One way to be a pollwatcher is to get hired by your county as a pollworker, and then sign up with Pollworkers For Democracy for extra pollwatcher training. This was a great program in 2006. This year it's being run by Credo.

It's not paranoia any more!

[AtLiberty]

8. This website is good in theory, but...

...it may provide a false sense of security. In Ohio, people were registered up until a week before the election only to find themselves purged on election day.

[emlev]

11. Yes, that's a problem.

The best I know to do about it is suggest that people check now and check again right before the deadline in their state. But that says nothing about what to do if people are removed AFTER the deadline to register. I know that in some places there are laws against removing voters from the rolls close to an election (don't know if that's federal or not), but that won't necessarily prevent it.

Got any ideas about what to do about that?

[AtLiberty]

12. Federal law prohibits purging a voter within...

...90 days of an election. It's a felony to purge someone sooner. But the National Voter Registration Act is not enforced. Ironically, election officials refer to the NVRA all the time as it spells out their duty for "database maintenance." They pick and choose which parts apply to them.

The DNC should have filed a lawsuit against Ohio election officials for purging voter so close to the election.

[demodonkey]

9. One more thing you can do -- donate NOW to the election integrity organization of your choice.

Election integrity organizations on all levels are working hard to protect everyone's vote since 2004 and before.

But this year, with all the cash going to the campaigns and $4 gas, many groups are struggling (especially the smaller organizations at the state and local levels) at the most crucial time when we should be flush with money and help.

So please, when you are donating to candidates kick a little extra in to the election integrity group of your choice. And if you can, kick in some help for your favorite group as well. On the day after the election, if things go goofy again, with YOUR HELP these organizations will be everyone's first line of defense.

[emlev]

10. You said it! Dollars used this way go much further than donating to candidates!

Thanks, Donk!