Voting registration deadlines are quickly approaching

Election officials say now is the time to make sure you’re registered to vote ahead of the November election, as it's just about a month away.

Columbia, S.C. (WOLO) — Election officials say now is the time to make sure you’re registered to vote ahead of the November election, as it’s just about a month away. In South Carolina, you have days left to get registered to vote, if you’re not registered already.

“Regardless of whether you think you’re registered properly or not, you should go check your registration,” said Chris Whitmire, Director of Public Information for the SC State Election Commission.

If you want to vote Nov. 3, you have to be registered and it has to be valid by this weekend. The deadline is midnight on October 4th.

“This includes people who have never registered before, maybe they’re new to the state. Maybe they’ve come of age or will be 18 by the date of the general election. But it also includes people who have moved from one county to another,” said Whitmire.

The best way to check out the deadlines and requirements or to make sure your registration is valid is by going to scvotes.gov.

“The next key date is Monday, October 5. That’s when in-person absentee voting opens, and that’ll stay open through the day before the election, on November 2,” said Whitmire.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, any registered voter in the state can now vote absentee.

“Every voter in the state now has three options to vote. You can vote in-person absentee, you can vote absentee by mail, or you can vote at your polling place on Election Day,” said Whitmire.

Voting absentee can also help reduce wait times and lines on Election Day.

“It also reduces the numbers on Election Day too, where we don’t have to squeeze so many people into that 12 hour period on that one day,” said Whitmire.

But no matter how you vote, the first step is to make sure you’re properly registered.

“Being a registered voter, it’s not something you do and then just forget about it. It requires maintenance. You need to maintain and take control and responsibility for your registration. Part of that is checking on it every once in awhile, and if something changes to update your registration,” said Whitmire.

Whitmire adds that as of Tuesday, there has been 488,000 absentee by mail applications. 333,000 of those have been returned. This is already more than double the record amount for absentee by mail, which was 140,000. That was set in the 2016 presidential election.

Again, if you have any questions or want to check the status of your voter registration, SCVotes.org is where you want to click.