If you’ve been putting it off, you don’t have much time left for procrastinating. The deadline to register to vote is just about here. If you want to vote in the Nov. 8 General Election, you have to be registered to vote no later than Tues., Oct. 18.
Check Your Current Status
If you’re not sure if you’re registered to vote, checking your status is easy. Just log onto www.canivote.org. Simply enter your name, date of birth and zip code and they’ll quickly let you know if you’re registered or not.
Even if you’re pretty confident you’re registered, it’s worth checking in here if you’ve moved or if you’ve gotten married and changed you name. You can check to make sure your registration is up to date.
Getting registered
What it takes to register to vote in Kansas has been a rapidly moving target, thanks to a series of lawsuits, mostly meant to challenge the state’s S.A.F.E. , a law that went into effect in 2013 that required individuals to provide proof of citizenship to vote. The law conflicts with federal law, and several federal judges — and a lot of Kansans — don’t appear too pleased with the concept.
The last ruling allows people who register using a federal voter registration form to bypass the requirement to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote. People registering using the State of Kansas Voter registration form are still required to provide proof of citizenship.
Our recommendation, register using the federal form. If you have proof of citizenship readily available, go ahead and submit it. If you don’t have the proof readily available, definitely use the Federal form. If you’re like more than 19,000 other Kansans, who registered to vote using the State form, had good intentions, but never got around to submitting their proof of citizenship, then you should use the Federal form. Our recommendation, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Watch out, a lot of people conducting local voter registration drives are using the State of Kansas form. The Kansas form clearly says Kansas Voter Registration form. The federal form just says Voter Registration Application and the message “Before completing this form, review the General, Application, and State specific instructions.”
IF you can’t find the federal form, go to our website www.communityvoiceks.com. You can download a copy of the federal form from there.
Your registration form should be turned in to your County Election Office. If you’re not sure where that is, here’s a list of the election offices in all 105 Kansas Counties. www.kssos.org/elections/elections_registration_ceo_display.aspx.
