Voter registration deadline approaching

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

With the Nov. 4 election nearing, so is the deadline for registering to vote in Wythe County. The last day to register is Monday, Oct. 6, by 5 p.m.
Potential voters must be 18 years old by Nov. 4 to register and be county residents. They must register in person at the Wythe County General Registrar’s Office, 245 South Fourth St. in Wytheville.
Mailed voter registration forms must be postmarked by 5 p.m. Monday, according to Registrar Elizabeth C. Cook.
She also reminds local voters that the law requires them to present identification at their polling precinct before they can vote. Forms of acceptable identification, she noted, are a voter card, driver’s license, Social Security card, an employer-issued photo identification card or any federal, state or local government identification card.
According to her, anyone not having any of these identifications must fill out an affirmation of identity form at her office.
As of Friday morning, there were 18,142 voters registered in Wythe County. On Sept. 1, the number was 17,930.
“They’re still coming in,” Cook remarked. “I don’t know how many of them are new registrations. Some of them are changes of address.”
The Nov. 4 ballot will include candidates for president, vice president, U.S. senator and U.S. representative.
Democratic Party candidates are Barack Obama for president and Joe Biden for vice president. Republican Party candidates are John McCain for president and Sarah Palin for vice president.
Also on the ballot are Independent Green Party candidates Chuck Baldwin for president and Darrell L. Castle for vice president; Libertarian Party candidates Bob Barr for president and Wayne A. Root for vice president; Green Party candidates Cynthia McKinney for president and Rose Clemente for vice president; and Independent Party candidates Ralph Nader for president and Matt Gonzalez for vice president.
Candidates for U.S. Senate are Mark R. Warner, Democrat; James S. “Jim” Gilmore, Republican; Glenda Gail Parker, Independent Green Party; and William B. Redpath, Libertarian Party.
U.S. House of Representatives Ninth District incumbent Rick C. Boucher, D.-Abingdon is running unopposed.
“We usually have a large turnout for a presidential election,” Cook said. “We’ve already had a lot of applications for voting by absentee ballot.”
In the 2004 presidential election, there were 11,767 Wythe County voters casting ballots. There were 17,277 voters registered locally.
The majority of local votes in the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election went to the Republican ticket of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. In the county, Bush and Cheney received 68.6 percent of the votes.
Also in that election, Boucher with 57 percent of the local vote defeated Republican challenger Kevin Triplett.
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 228-6611 or .