Deadline to register to vote in August is Thursday

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, July 2, 2003

[7/1/03]People not registered to vote who plan to cast ballots in primary elections Aug. 5 must register with their county circuit clerks by Thursday afternoon.

New registrations and address changes will be accepted until 5 p.m. Thursday, Warren County Circuit Clerk Larry Ashley said.

Party primaries are set in eight races for Warren County or area legislative posts. In all, 15 Democratic candidates in five races, and six Republican candidates in three races, are to be on primary ballots.

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Primaries are held to put the political parties’ nominees on general election ballots to face independents. The general election is Nov. 4.

The total number of registered voters stood at 32,734 on March 18, Warren County Election Commission Chairman James McMullin said. An estimate of registered voters published shortly before elections four years ago, 29,907, is 2,827 fewer.

“It has creeped up,” said McMullin, adding that some of the people on the county voter roll could have moved. “Everybody who moves out does not take himself off the rolls,” McMullin said. He added that election commissioners receive a once-a-year notification of people who are believed to have moved, either within or from the county. That batch usually numbers 2,200 to 2,500, he said.

“Any time anybody moves, please let the election commission or the circuit clerk’s office know,” McMullin said. “It might put them in a different precinct or a different district.”

People can call either office and request that they be mailed a change-of-address card, which they are required to sign and mail back confirming any change.

Since elections were held four years ago, a census has been held and voting-district lines for county supervisor, county justice court judge and constable and all legislative seats have been redrawn. The changes have also made necessary the redrawing of voting-precinct lines within the county, McMullin said.

Letters notifying voters of changes in their polling places were to be sent as early as this week, he said.

“People need to read that and pay attention to it,” McMullin said of the letters voters will be receiving. “I guarantee you that on election day there will be hundreds of people going to the wrong precinct, and they won’t be on the books. You have to vote in the precinct where you live.”