The Washoe County guide to voting
There are so many groups on campus telling people to vote, it’s easy to forget this is the first election in which many students are eligible to vote.
“It was a lot easier than I thought,” said first-time voter Alexa Jackson, an 18-year-old psychology major. “It only took about five minutes.”
Even if voting is easy, knowing what to do beforehand will make it even easier. Dan Burk, the Washoe County Registrar of Voters, offered this walk-through advice to students voting for the first time:
Students must be registered in Washoe County to vote here. If a student is registered in another county, they will have to request an absentee ballot from that county, Burk said.
“Early voting is a big advantage,” Burk said.
Not only will students avoid lines by voting early, but they can vote at any of the 18 early voting locations. One of those locations is room 420 of the Joe Crowley Student Union. Early voting runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Sunday until Oct. 31.
If voters wait until Nov. 4 to vote, they will not have a choice of which polling place to attend. Registered voters should have received a sample ballot in the mail with their assigned polling place listed on the back. If students lost the sample ballot, they can look up their polling place online at www.washoecounty.us/voters or by calling 775-328-3670.
When students go to vote, Burk suggested they bring their sample ballot with them.
“Read through and make your choices ahead of time,” Burk said. “It really speeds everything up.”
Not only does bringing the sample ballot along expedite the voting process, but the identification process as well. On the back of the sample ballot is a barcode that easily identifies voters when scanned.
If students forget their sample ballot, they can still vote. Identification isn’t even needed in most cases, although Burk suggests voters bring a driver’s license or other government-issued ID along anyway.
“The only time they would need identification is if they got a notice in the mail that they are an ID-required voter, which very few people are, or if your signature doesn’t match the one we have on file,” Burk said.
If voters are required to have an ID and don’t have one, they will be given a provisional ballot that only has the presidential and national congressional races on it.
Once voters are positively identified, they will be given a card to insert into the voting machine. The touch screen voting machines will walk voters through the rest of the process.
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on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 12:44 am and is filed under Election Coverage, News.
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