Students who have not yet received their voter registration card may be in for a nasty surprise come Election Day.
Those who have relied on others to turn in their voter registration forms may find that they have not been registered by today's deadline.
"The problem is, when you rely on somebody else to take care of your application for registration, you're taking a risk," Committee of Seventy Executive Director Frederick Voigt said, encouraging those unsure of their registration status to call Philadelphia's voter registration office. "If you put it in the mail yourself, you're probably going to get registered in time."
At times when the political stakes are high, it is tempting to look at the opposing party for a scapegoat. Voigt, however, dismisses such speculation.
"Unfortunately, some groups hold the forms [until] the last minute," Voigt said. "It's typically people who are doing something with good will but doing it stupidly. It's typically not a conspiracy."
For students who have not received their voter registration card, Voigt suggests a last-minute option.
"Go out and do it themselves, or put it in the mail [today]," Voigt said. "If the postmark is [today], they're OK."
One reason for the delay could be that the voter registration board has been inundated with forms in this presidential year, and has not yet had a chance to sort them all out. It is possible, even likely, that many forms simply have not been processed yet.
But still, leaders of Penn's partisan groups concur that students should check with the voter registration office if they have not yet received their voter registration card.
"Occasionally, the paperwork gets lost," said College Republicans President Eric Rechtschaffen, explaining the possible reasons for a delay.
"Personally, we hand-deliver the voter registration forms to City Hall," Rechtschaffen said, noting that other groups may deliver forms through different means. "Every form that we've gotten thus far has been delivered to the county clerk's office. ... At this point, we're 100 percent caught up."
Although the Penn College Democrats have a bit of a backlog of undelivered forms, they are certain that all forms will be delivered by today's deadline.
"The only ones that haven't been handed in are the ones which we received last Thursday or Friday," College Democrats President Rich Eisenberg said, noting that just over 100 forms remained undelivered as of yesterday.
Kristine Fortin, a medical student, has not yet received her voter registration card as of yesterday. She registered with a volunteer on campus just after Sen. John Kerry's rally in late September.
Fortin recalls that the volunteer planned to turn in the registration form right away.
"She actually gave me a phone number to call, but when I called the voter registration office, they said they hadn't received [my registration form] yet," Fortin said.
"They said it's a problem they have a lot," Fortin continued, adding that her friend lacked a voter registration card due to a computer error.
Fortin registered in person yesterday, just to be safe.
"It'd be a good idea to call," Fortin said.
Students who have not yet received a voter registration card may be forced to cast a provisional ballot, which is issued on Election Day to a voter whose name does not appear on the list of registered electors.
