Friday is the last day to register if you want to vote in the Nov. 5 general election.
If you make the deadline either by registering in person or postmarking your application on time, you are eligible to vote early as well. It’s the first year for early voting in New York state, and seven polling sites will be open from Oct. 26 through Nov. 3.
If you miss the deadline, you still have options.
Monroe County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Colleen Anderson says that for those who registered in one county but moved to a different county, the best way is by affidavit.
For those who are unregistered, it’s a bit more complicated.
“If you’re not registered to vote, you have a chance to do an affidavit; however, that affidavit probably wouldn’t count. If you don’t register by the deadline, probably the best option would be a court order.”
For people who are homeless and might be unsure of how to fill out the address line of the registration form, Anderson says you can put down an address near where you generally rest.
“We have a bunch of people who are homeless. We just need to know a location in which they generally rest their head so we can give them the proper representatives for them,” Anderson says.
But, as Republican Commissioner Doug French says, you’ll also need to include a mailing address.
“If we send out a welcome voter letter and it gets returned to us, they would be inactivated in our system. So they do need to have a place where they can get their mail,” French says.
French adds that people can also visit the DMV website up until midnight Friday to change their address or register to vote. That information, he says, is shared automatically with the Board of Elections.
