How Are You Celebrating National Voter Registration Day?

National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) is coming! More than 225 League of Women Voters affiliates around the country have signed on to hit the streets and help register voters as part of this year’s National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday, September 22. For the third straight year, the League is thrilled to be part of this massive celebration of voting and democracy. And with presidential primaries just around the corner, the timing has never been better for all of us to ask our friends, neighbors, coworkers and family if their voter registration is up-to-date.

More than 1,000 nonprofits, government officials, businesses and other groups have already signed up to participate in National Voter Registration Day 2015. While supporters of the day come from many different places and backgrounds, we all agree that voting is something to celebrate, whether it’s in one of the hundreds of local elections taking place this fall or in next year’s pivotal presidential election.

Here at the League, NVRD been a fun way for League volunteers to get out and know their communities. The day has also helped leverage the League’s grassroots power around a single day of action on voter registration. The result? Tens of thousands of new voters registered by the League on past National Voter Registration Days.

Here’s just a taste of what our amazing volunteer teams have planned for this year:

• In Richmond, Virginia, League volunteers will be taking advantage of a major sporting event, the UCI Bike Race, in order to encourage more than 450,000 visiting athletes to register and vote at a downtown registration drive. The Richmond League is also partnering up with the local transit authority to run electronic voter registration ads on city buses all day long! 

• In Minnesota, the League of Women Voters of Bloomington is celebrating NVRD all month long! League volunteers will register student voters at Normandale Community College, help engage new Americans at the Bloomington Citizenship Ceremony, and head out to other venues like Bloomington Heritage Days and Bloomington Farmers Market.

• League volunteers in the Berkeley/Albany/Emeryville, CA will be stationed at several busy BART (Bay Area RAPID Transit) stations to help evening commuters get registered and hand out helpful information. They’ll be joined by the Alameda County registrars’ voter outreach staff.

• The League of Women Voters of Arlington, VA will be kicking off a district-wide high school voter registration project on NVRD 2015, with events coming together at several local schools. With statewide elections happening across the state of Virginia this year, League volunteers are excited to help every eligible student get ready for Election Day.

• Like many Leagues across the country, the League of Women Voters of Howard County, MD will be participating in National Voter Registration Day by heading to their local library. In addition to registering voters or helping people update their registration if they’ve moved, the local Board of Elections will be teaming up with the League at this event to demonstrate the new Maryland voting equipment that will be used for the first time next year.

• Like dozens of Leagues across the country, the League of Pocatello, ID will be taking their clipboards out to help young people get registered ahead of next year’s presidential primaries. Volunteers will be on the campus of Idaho State University to help students register to vote.  

Everybody can get involved in this important holiday! If you volunteer with your local League of Women Voters or another community organization, there is still time to talk with your team and sign up as a partner. Or, you can celebrate as an individual by encouraging your social networks, email contacts and friends and family to register to vote or update their registration if they’ve moved, changed their name or changed their political affiliation since the last election. Follow the #celebrateNVRD hashtag for great shareable content and graphics.

Election Day 2015 is coming! Now is the time to remind the people in your life to visit VOTE411.org to register to vote, make sure that their voter registration record is up-to-date and learn about important voting rules and deadlines in their state. With your help, we’re Making Democracy Work®!