Today is National Voter Registration Day, a day to reach out to unregistered voters and encourage them to get involved in the political process.
It is important to get unregistered citizens to vote so they can be active in the community.
Last Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown simplified the process to become a registered voter by signing legislation to implement online registration for voters.
Californians can now register via the web in hopes to increase voter turnout, primarily among young adults and college students.
According to a survey from the Public Policy Institute of California, 29 percent of our state’s adult voters are over the age of 55 while 33 percent are college students. However, students only contribute to 18 percent of students in the state vote.
Only 75 percent of Americans that are registered to vote actually do, and 24 percent of Americans are eligible but aren’t registered.
In the 21st Century, everything is online.
Books, articles, movies – everything is accessible with the click of a button. It only makes sense that registering to vote should be as accessible as well.
Now, young adults can register through a simple online process. It will be just as easy to register to vote as it is to register for a social network.
With all the time they spend on Facebook, young adults have no excuse to not register.
Proposition 30 has made less proactive voters to become involved in an issue that is bound to affect them. Hopefully, with this new access to online registration, students will voice their opinion on other issues that affect our college, city and state.
The deadline to register to vote for the Nov. 6 elections is Oct. 22.
That is plenty of time for us to sit down and register.
If online registration isn’t enough, new legislation has been passed by Brown to allow same-day voting registration.
This will become effective starting Jan. 1, 2013. So if you somehow forget there is an election coming that day, you can still vote.
Both online and same-day voter registration will greatly change accessibility for students and busy young adults.
It is about time our registration process caught up with times.
Krista Brooks is a junior journalism major and the assistant opinions editor for the Daily 49er.