What You Need to Know About Registering to Vote

By: Sarah Gomez, Staff Writer

In the past few months we have heard a lot about voting. The biggest thing, though, is that we have to register to vote. Something that sounds so simple can easily get complicated for a variety of reasons. 

If you are a resident of Colorado, meaning you have a state-issued ID or driver's license, then you can go to onto the Secretary of the State’s website under the elections tab, the register to vote link on the right column  (https://www.sos.state.co.us/voter/pages/pub/olvr/verifyNewVoter.xhtml) and fill out required fields. Overall a relatively simple process. 

However, for out of state students that are confused on how you can register, the process gets a bit more tedious, but nothing to fear. The hardest part about the process for our out of staters is going to be having to mail in a voter registration form. In order to register you must fill out the mail-in form found by going to the same page to register online, but continuing to click the link provided at the bottom of the page labeled “Paper Voter Registration Form (PDF)” (https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/vote/VoterRegFormEnglish.pdf) with your current Regis address (3333 Regis Blvd and your hall and room number), then you have a few options. You can mail in the filled out forms to the Department of the State, or scan and email the completed form to elections@denvergov.org

There are some important things to remember about registering to vote. You may only vote once, that means you cannot do a mail in ballot for your home state and vote in Colorado too, that is a felony in certain states and is strictly prohibited in Colorado. The deadline to register to vote online or by mail in Colorado is Oct.  26th, while in person registration does not close and can be completed up to election day (Nov. 3).