Last Chance to Register to Vote is Monday

If you plan on voting on Nov. 6, the deadline to register is Monday.

Voter registration is officially 15 days before Election Day, which places the deadline on Oct. 22.

And registration, in the era of the Internet, has never been easier. You can register online through the California Online Voter Registration System.

To vote in California you must be:

• At  least 18 years old by Election Day
• A U.S. citizen
• A California resident
• Not in prison or on parole for a felony
• Not declared mentally incompetent by court action

If you are a voter already, but have moved into Alameda County, changed your name, or want to switch parties, you must re-register.

Check Your Registration

Are you really registered to vote? Use the link above to see if you’re registered where you think you are registered. If you moved and did paperwork with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the transfer of information may not have caught up with election officials.

Online Registration

You can register anytime, including after hours, via the California Online Voter Registration System (http://www.registertovote.ca.gov).Contact the Secretary of State’s Elections Division at (800) 345-8683 if you have any questions regarding the online application.

Alameda County Registration

 Voter registration affidavits are available at the Registrar of Voters office, at the offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles, all city clerks offices, public libraries and post offices. Completed affidavits must be delivered to the Registrar of Voters office at 1225 Fallon St., Room G-1, Oakland, CA 94612 or postmarked by Oct. 22 in order to be valid for this election.

Alameda County voters can call the Registrar of Voters office at (510) 272-6973 or (510) 267-8683 or visit our website at www.acgov.org/rov to check their voter registration status.

To mark the final hours of the voter registration period, for the November 6th Presidential Election, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office will hold a special “Midnight Madness’’ voter registration drive outside its offices in downtown Oakland from 5 p.m. to midnight Monday, according to an Alameda County press release.

The event will occur outside Alameda County’s Rene C. Davidson Courthouse at 1225 Fallon St., Oakland, where the Registrar of Voters keeps its offices. Staff will be on hand to distribute registration forms, answer questions and receive completed forms right up until the midnight registration deadline.

Also present at the event will be AC Transit’s eye-catching Voter Registration Bus, which has been the centerpiece of the Registrar’s exhaustive voter registration drive leading up to the Election.

The bus, adorned with a colorful exterior design, has proven to be an effective way to draw attention to the registration effort and the looming Oct. 22 deadline.

“We have worked extremely hard over the past several weeks to make registering to vote for the November election as easy as possible,’’ said Dave Macdonald, Alameda County Registrar of Voters. “For those people we still haven’t reached, we want to make ourselves available to accept registration forms right up to the midnight deadline.’’

The midnight registration event will coincide with similar efforts elsewhere to allow citizens to register at the last-minute for the November 6th election.

Also in Oakland, the League of Women Voters of Oakland will be holding a registration drive from 6 p.m. until midnight on Oct. 22 in front of the Safeway store at 51st Street and Broadway.

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