If you aren’t registered to vote by Monday, you won’t be allowed to vote in the primary election May 8.
To register to vote, you need an Ohio driver’s license or Ohio identification card number, your name, date of birth and address, and the last four digits of your Social Security number.
Athens County Board of Elections Director Debbie Quivey said, as of Friday afternoon, about 45,000 people were registered to vote in the county, but she expects that to change by the deadline.
“It is an easy process,” she said in an email. “Our office will be open 8:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. You can also register online.”
The Ohio University College Democrats typically work to register voters on campus, and President Ashley Fishwick said this registration period is no different. As of Friday, Fishwick said she thinks the group had registered about 200 people and planned to get more before the deadline.
Some students forget that if you change your address or move, you need to reregister under that address for your registration to be valid, Fishwick said.
“Even if you move to a different dorm or a different room in the same dorm, you have to re-register,” she said in an email. “College students are constantly moving and most don’t think to update their address.”
In Ohio, people will cast a vote for their party’s candidate for governor and lieutenant governor, attorney general, state auditor, U.S. senator, congressional representative and more.
Primary elections are often an indicator of a party’s potential turnout and voter enthusiasm for the November general election, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
“In a way, primaries resemble special elections,” Nate Cohn, a domestic correspondent at The New York Times, said in a report. “Nonpresidential primaries are relatively low-turnout affairs that provide a clue about which side’s base is more engaged. That’s extremely important in midterm elections.”
If you aren’t sure if you’re registered to vote or what address you’re registered at, you can use this tool on the Athens County Board of Elections website to search your name to look up your registration.
