ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 With less than two months until Election Day, local officials are sending out the reminder to register to vote. Sept. 15 is National Voter Registration Day, and communities are gathering the resources New Yorkers need to make it easy to perform your civic duty.<\/p>\n
\u201cNational Voter Registration Day gives us an opportunity to remind our friends, family members, neighbors, students and coworkers to check their registration status, make sure their information is current and learn about the resources available to them,\u201d Peter Elder, Republican commissioner of the Monroe County Board of Elections, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that civic participation is strongest when registration and election information are accessible, understandable and available in the communities where people live, work and go to school. That is why we are pleased that our community outreach team has made many connections and partnerships are a culmination of that effort,\u201d added Elder’s Democratic counterpart, Jackie Ortiz.<\/p>\n
Educational pop-up events will take place across the state Tuesday at workplaces, schools, churches, libraries and neighborhoods. Officials say voter registration is a non-partisan, community-wide initiative.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, we are working to develop educational civic programing that helps residents, particularly our young people, understand how elections work, why participation matters and how they can make their voices heard,\u201d Ortiz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage every eligible resident to take a few minutes to make sure they are registered. Learn about upcoming elections and consider how they can play a role not only as a voter, but as an election inspector and an engaged member of their community. We look forward to continuing this important work together,\u201d Elder added.<\/p>\n
They want to remind New Yorkers that their vote matters in local elections, especially. Aqua Porter, executive director of the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative, says in 2020, Rochester has nearly 150,000 voting-aged-citizens, but less than 109,000 registered voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone asks, ‘why should I vote?’ There isn’t one answer that works for everybody. We need to understand what are the things that people care about,\u201d Porter said. \u201cThey are things that affect people’s everyday lives, and we have to help people make the connection between the things they care about and the people who make decisions about those things. We need people to know that their vote is their power, and that with that vote, they elect the people who make decisions that affect their lives every day. That’s the work. And that’s also why this work matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those resources are being provided to the next generation, too. The Rochester City School District is teaching lessons throughout the day to its upperclassmen about the power of voting, how elections work and why participation matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents learn to investigate a concern, evaluate information, communicate a position and understand how they can contribute. The voter registration provides another practical connection between that learning and participation in our democracy. Throughout this work, our responsibility is to provide accurate, non-partisan information and support students in making their own informed choices,\u201d said RCSD Executive Director of Social Studies Ryan Keating.<\/p>\n
County leaders say the election inspectors are a crucial part of the democratic process as well. That\u2019s why they\u2019re always looking for residents to participate. Ortiz says they look for individuals from all backgrounds to get the job done.<\/p>\n
\u201cElection inspectors are an especially important part of our democratic process. They help make sure that our elections are accessible, orderly and conducted fairly. We need residents from all backgrounds and communities to consider serving in this very important role and voter registration is an important first step,\u201d Ortiz added.<\/p>\n
As concerns grow from mail-in ballot accessibility, the Monroe County Board of Elections says nothing has changed on its end, per state regulations. Officials say mail-in votes will still be delivered appropriately this election season. However, if there is any concern, they welcome mail-in ballots to be hand-delivered. There are hundreds of locations with drop boxes open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.<\/p>\n
The final day to register to vote in time to participate in the November election is Oct. 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 With less than two months until Election Day, local officials are sending out the reminder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[116,26007,38490,4275,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,87,115,200],"class_list":["post-347386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","tag-dana-damiani","tag-decision-2026","tag-local-politics","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-rochester","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}