NAACP AC Branch: Dates for voter registration and early voting

some some important dates for those of you who vote by mail the mail and ballots will start getting shipped out by the county clerk on September 21st of this year on October 15th in New Jersey that's the deadline to register to vote if you're not already registered in Atlantic County and the offices of the superintendent of election are open until 900 p.m. that evening so you can visit the county office building we're on the floor until 9:00 p.m. that that evening or you can come out to the county seat in Main's landing and register to vote um but the simplest way to do that if you are not already registered and I give this to everybody so you might want to write it down because it's a great website it's vote. nj.gov again that's vote. nj.gov that's the state division of Elections website you you could find so much information there on elections you could probably compete with my memory over the last 20 years um in so far as election law deadlines what elections are coming up what the chronological calendar is so you're sure that you know you're in franchise for the next election so um hold on and you can also register to vote online right you can also register to vote when you go to motor vehicles um we are an opt out State now which means unless you indicate that you don't want to be registered to vote the information you give when you update your driver's license or registration will be forwarded to our offices uh for change of address purposes or perhaps you got married divorced um name changed moved within the county we get that information relatively quickly and we use that to make sure your record is as current as it can be same goes for the online voter registration so if you find that you can't get to our offices or somebody is um stuck at home for some reason ill what have you as long as you have a smartphone you can get that person registered to vote um all the way up until the deadline it reaches us within seconds of having done that so we're big proponents for that we have just over 200,000 registered voters in Atlantic County that number is slightly inflated and when I say that um that's in all likelihood because what folks don't seem to um appreciate always is the fact that when you receive official election mail to your home and when I say official not you know flyers for campaigns and things like that when you get your sample ballot at home or your Malin ballot at home uh if you receive one for somebody who no longer lives there because they've moved out out and you've moved in most people take that and toss it in the trash with 200,000 people more than that actually just over on our roles I can't possibly be friends with every single one of you nowh you're currently living know that you're not fighting with your spouse and moved out for a few months right so when it's tossed in the trash we don't get it back you remain live at that address right so if you take one thing away from today simply write on that election mail no longer at this address put it back in the mailbox and the postal service by law is required to return that to us when we receive it we can use that to update somebody's voter record doesn't mean they're going to be disenfranchised doesn't mean they're going to be blocked from voting but it's going to flag us that they may have moved we investigate that their status may go to inactive so when they do show up to vote hopefully where they currently live right but if they happen to show up where they used to live we're going to have them update their voter address for us and they're either going to proceed to the machine to vote a regular Ballot or they're going to vote a provisional ballot if they don't want to go to the polling site they belong at now right so that's really really critical folks move out of state and don't tell the commissioner of registration so because New Jersey doesn't participate with every single state across the country um in fact no state does we can't possibly know who's moved down to Florida and retired and things like that um they're in the process of uh joining New Jersey is rather this um it's called Eric which will tie us in with other states so we can share that data but it's not like Social Security where the government knows um the the voter roles know exactly where everybody lives at all times Nationwide right so that would really really help us if you happen to see mail for somebody that no longer lives at your address or at your neighbor's address or if your children have grown up and moved away um for those of you who have children in college they're one of the main groups who can choose where to vote even though New Jersey may be their actual Street home residence with their parents the state allows you the opportunity to choose to vote at home or I'm a college student I'm living in Pennsylvania I want to vote in Pennsylvania I happen to be a little bit more in tune politically to what's going on around my campus and I want to have a say in those elections right so that that's something else that can happen there um okay was registration deadline October 15th SLE valet will go out September 23rd early voting opens in seven locations for a general election you're going to be able to vote 10 days in advance of the actual election for nine of those days CU we Clos down on the Monday the day before the election just to get everything together give election officials a chance to breathe and um make sure all of that information is turned over you can vote in seven locations in this County on a machine for those of you who may not remember in the last presidential election in 2020 most of us other than those who had Ada um challenges had to vote by mail right so we haven't seen an in-person presidential election for the masses since 2016 okay and if Kim and your esteemed board is successful in getting everybody inspired to get out and vote for those of you who voted in 2016 you may recall presidentials are the highest turnout we tend to have lines right and we didn't have brand new technology for all of those folks turning out and we didn't have electronic poll books so we are anticipating that there can be delays so if you're not voting by mail let me encourage you and please sing it to everybody you know please use early voting it's safe it's secure if you don't normally vote in the smaller elections you're going to have more time with the technology and there are more poll workers there to assist you so you're not intimidated if there's a language B barrier um if you're visually impaired there are things on these machines that can really assist you okay um the deadline to apply for a vote by mail this year is October 29th and if you miss that you're going to have to come out in person to the county clerk's offices and apply by November 4th inperson deadline would be November 4th finally last thing I wanted to tell you um and if you don't mind I'll that way I could stop talking at people I'll take some questions when early Bo starts yes I did that is Saturday October 26th through Sunday November 3rd pardon me if I didn't get that date it was dates already that's the nine days um elections have really changed dramatically if you're an election official and I don't know how much the voting public public knows how many opportunities you have to vote now and how many ways we will chase you down and find you if you happen to send in your ballot and you forgot to sign it or you left something off of that there are now ballot cures so the information you have on file you know with your phone number or your email address try to check it if you walk out of the um polling site or you walk away rather from the um bot drop boxes which are all throughout the county and you oh my God I don't think I signed my ballot okay number one if that happens get a hold of us but if you do forget you may be contacted to cure that ballot get it in right away get your cure in off of your signature so that your vote indeed counts um we chase you down for for about a week a little longer after the election as long as your mail and ballot if put in the US Postal Service mailbox is postmarked by election day so you can't vote the day after the election but if you if you screwed it up somehow putting it in the um mailbox and you forgot something important on your certification we do try to find you desperately because we want your rate to count we also have opportunities for helpers um two years ago the um Office of the superintendent of Elections branched out we were exhausted Charles Goodman knows because he came out and helped us a few years back and um it's quite a long day for us so we had the great idea to bring in some high school and college students to um kind of give some a breath of fresh air to our very tired teams around 6 o'cl at night on Election Day because there's nothing better than a bunch of young folks to help lift the suitcases if you've been a pole worker you know they're going to help you get them out of their out of your trunk and bring them in and things like that so we're always looking for additional help oh oh you got it be uh we we have hired as young as 17 and up to assist us a lot of the high schools will offer additional credit to a student if they help out we can't talk with all of them but we'll certainly make a case to get them you know if they're at an a maybe they'll get an A+ um and we're working to confirm that Governor Murphy will again be offering one college credit to college students who assist us in that respect I I can assure you that of all the teens we have had come out and help us um including Mr good they really are they really do leave our offices and the warehouse going my gosh I had no idea what you all do and how hard you work in teams to make sure nobody can she and to