Hey. You. Are you registered to vote yet? No? Well, you picked the perfect week to grab an issue of the Sun, because we’re making voter registration simple for you (and your unregistered friends and family members).
Inside this week’s print edition of the Sun, you’ll find a voter registration card, anxiously waiting to be filled out and turned in at any Santa Barbara County Elections Office. Easy for you, but not so much for us—our office staff spent hours folding 10,000 individual voter registration cards to make sure they would fit in our newspaper.
Please honor our blood, sweat, and tears (as well as those of our country’s founding fathers, who fought to create a nation in which your voice counts) by registering and heading to the polls on Nov. 8 to cast your votes in the general election. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year and haven’t yet heard, this election is a crucial one. It needs you.
Not yet convinced? Well, besides electing a new president of the United States and recruiting a fresh lineup of state and local representatives, these are a few issues you’ll help settle if you vote on Nov. 8:
• Should recreational marijuana be legal in California?
• Should the death penalty be legal in California—and if so, should the process be quicker?
• Should public schools receive more state funding?
• Should California bump up its cigarette tax by $2?
• Should corporations have the same constitutional rights as human beings when it comes to campaign finance?
• Should businesses be allowed to sell single-use plastic bags, and if so, where should the revenue go?
Those are just a few of the voter initiatives on this year’s ballot—in fact, California voters are facing the fullest ballot since 2000. And you can have a say in how this election will play out.
Your last day to register is Oct. 24. Complete the card we’ve provided for you—or if you’re already a registered voter, give it to someone who isn’t—and turn it in at any of the three election office locations in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, and Lompoc.
Thank you for doing your part.
This article appears in Oct 6-13, 2016.