CITY LIMITS: ABSENTEE VOTING

For University students who don't care about Philadelphia politics and won't be home in time to vote in their native state's primary election, there is a voting alternative. Students can request an absentee ballot for the upcoming presidential and local elections and remain active voters in their home states. The following is an explanation of how students can obtain an absentee ballot from the five states which send the most students to the University: Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, California and Massachusetts. · PENNSYLVANIA -- According to Fay Ginther, the chief clerk of elections in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania students from outside Philadelphia County can request an absentee ballot by filling out an application for a ballot or writing a simple letter requesting a ballot to the students' home counties. Students need to be registered to vote in their home county prior to asking for an absentee ballot, and, every election, students need to re-request an absentee ballot, Ginther said. Pennsylvania's primary election is being held on Tuesday, April 28 this year. Voters need to be registered by March 30. The last day to apply for an absentee ballot is April 21, one week prior to the election, and the absentee ballot must be received by 5 p.m. on the Friday before the election. Ginther said one of the biggest problems encountered with absentee voters is that the voters do not return their ballots in time. "Voters have to allow for mailing," Ginther said. "Voters should not wait until the deadline to request an absentee ballot because they won't have time to send it in." · NEW YORK -- Students from New York must call or write their local election boards, and the boards will send them applications for an absentee ballots, a representative from the general county of New York City said. The deadline for voter registration in New York is March 13, and the primary election is on April 7. The representative said absentee ballots will be recieved until midnight on the night before the elections. · NEW JERSEY -- Voters from New Jersey can receive an absentee ballot by going to their local county offices or writing a short letter requesting a form, a representative from Ocean County Board of Elections said. A county will send students the absentee ballots, if they are registered voters. The New Jersey primary election is being held June 2, and students wanting to vote must register by May 1. Absentee ballots can be requested anytime, and they have to be returned to county election boards by 3 p.m. on the day of the election, the representative said. · CALIFORNIA -- According to John Mott-Smith, a representative from the California State Election Board, when students register to vote, they can use their campus addresses as their mailing addresses, and they will automatically receive absentee ballots. Mott-Smith added that students must remember to fill in their home addresses for their residence addresses on the voter registration forms. Voters can also receive an absentee ballot, he said, by writing a letter to their home county election officials. In addition, voters can begin requesting absentee ballots at anytime, and the couties' election officials will begin sending the ballots to the voters a month before the election. This year, California's primary elections are June 2, and voters must be registered by May 4. Election officials must receive absentee ballots no later than May 26. · MASSACHUSETTS -- Students from Massachusetts can obtain absentee ballots by sending written applications or by having a parent or a relative apply for them in the town in which they are registered to vote, Harry Petrucci, a representative from the Massachusetts Board of Elections said. The Masssachusetts primary election is being held on March 10, and the deadline for registering to vote has passed. Petrucci said absentee ballots need to be returned by 8 p.m. the day of the election. · Students from states other then the ones listed should call their state election boards to find out voting regulations in their home state.

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