Just for Sheeva…
Minnesota allows you to register to vote on election day. Growing up, I just assumed that was the norm. I mean, what if your eighteenth birthday is on election day? What if you spent the month of October travelling and forgot to register before you left? It just makes sense to me that you shouldn’t be able to disenfranchise yourself until election day — if you’re eligible to vote, you should be able to vote.
But it turns out that Minnesota is one of only six states where you don’t have to register in advance — Maine, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming all have same day registration as well. And in North Dakota, you don’t have to register at all. Now granted, this probably only works out in North Dakota where all of the communities are small and everyone generally knows everyone (Fargo, with a population of around 75,000, is it’s largest city). Plus, you then wonder how they do jury selection. But it certainly is a nice ideal — if you’re a citizen you vote. End of story.
If you haven’t registered to vote yet, and you live in one of the six states listed above, then you’re in luck — go to the polls on election day and vote. If you don’t, well, congratulations, you have been disenfranchised. Please try again next year.