New address means re-register to vote

Congratulations on your new home. Now go fill out a new voter registration form.

If your address changed since the 2008 election, the Missoula County Elections Office needs an updated voter registration card from you. Otherwise, you won't get your ballot in the mail.

"It affects a number of people," said Chief Deputy Clerk and Recorder Debbe Merseal. "It seems like in this town, people move a lot. University students, by the time they give us a new registration card and we mail out their ID card, they've already moved."If you didn't vote in the November election, you're in the same boat. You need to get an updated registration form to the Elections Office to get your ballot in the mail come October.

The 2009 municipal election is again taking place by mail ballot. To help protect the integrity of the vote, election ballots don't get forwarded in the mail. Instead, they get returned to the Missoula County Courthouse.

In Missoula's first all-mail municipal election in 2007, voter turnout jumped - but more than one-fourth of the ballots didn't reach their intended recipients. The Elections Office estimated that 90 percent of them were students who no longer lived in the area.

Still, Montana Conservation Voters program director Sarah Cobler said it's important that people who move within Missoula re-register so they maintain the opportunity to vote.

"I think that's one of the inherent challenges with a mail ballot system, although they seem to work really well for these municipal races," Cobler said.

The Elections Office counts 42,513 active voters, and Merseal said that number reflects the people who cast ballots in 2008. The list of inactive voters is 8,447 and shrinking. Inactive voters are ones who didn't vote in November - and haven't re-registered since. The list is getting shorter because the Elections Office is in the middle of canceling those who haven't voted since 2004.

"The majority of the people who are in the inactive status now probably don't even live here anymore," Merseal said.

To get a ballot in the mail, citizens need to register by Oct. 5. After that date, the process for late registration kicks in. Registration forms are available online at www.co.missoula.mt.us/election/ and inside the Dex phone book.