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Here Are Links To Register To Vote And Request A Mail Ballot In Every U.S. State

Amid a global pandemic that will see unprecedented levels of mail-in voting, it’s more important than ever that you plan your vote now. Below, you will find direct links to your state’s Board of Elections to register to vote (39 states will let you do so online right now) and/or request your absentee ballot.

The deadlines listed below are deadlines to register to vote. Some states continue to extend deadlines for requesting or returning your absentee ballot, so make sure to check that regularly. In any event, you can absolutely still vote in person on election day or earlier in many states. If you plan to vote by mail, we cannot stress this enough: request your ballot ASAP. Fill it out ASAP. Return it ASAP. You can return your absentee ballot in the mail or drop it off at a safe location in your area. And if you never receive your absentee ballot or forget to fill it out, you can still vote on election day in person.

Alabama

General Election Deadline: October 19, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Alaska

General Election Deadline: October 4, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Arizona

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Arkansas

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

California

General Election Deadline: October 19; also offers same-day registration

Every registered voter in California will receive a ballot in the mail — make sure your address is updated.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Colorado

General Election Deadline: October 26, 2020 but also offers same-day registration for those who want to vote in person on election day.

Every registered voter in Colorado will be sent a mail ballot — make sure your address is updated.

Connecticut

General Election Deadline: October 27, 2020 or same-day registration.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Delaware

General Election Deadline: October 10, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Florida

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Georgia

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Hawaii

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020, also offers same-day registration.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Idaho

General Election Deadline: October 9, 2020

*Can register to vote in person on election day

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Illinois

General Election Deadline:

By Mail: October 6, 2020

Online: October 18, 2020

Also offers same-day registration to vote in person.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Indiana

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Iowa

General Election Deadline: October 24, 2020, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Kansas

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Kentucky

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Louisiana

General Election Deadline:

In person/by mail: October 5, 2020

Online: October 13, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Maine

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Maryland

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Massachusetts

General Election Deadline: October 24, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Michigan

General Election Deadline: October 19, 2020, but also offers same-day registration for in-person voting on election day.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Minnesota

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting on election day.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Mississippi

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Missouri

General Election Deadline: October 7, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Montana

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020, offers same-day registration to vote in-person on election day.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Nebraska

General Election Deadline:

By mail or online: October 16, 2020

In person: October 23, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Nevada

General Election Deadline: October 6, 2020 to vote by mail, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting on election day.

Every registered voter in Nevada will be sent a mail ballot — make sure your address is updated.

New Hampshire

General Election Deadline: October 21, 2020, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting on election day.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

New Jersey

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020

Every registered voter in New Jersey will be sent a mail ballot this year.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

New Mexico

General Election Deadline:

By Mail: October 6, 2020

In person: October 31, 2020

New York

General Election Deadline: October 9, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

North Carolina

General Election Deadline:

By Mail: October 9, 2020

In Person: October 31, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

North Dakota

To vote in North Dakota, you just need to bring a valid proof of ID and residency to the polls.

Find your polling location or request an absentee ballot

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Ohio

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Oklahoma

General Election Deadline: October 9, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Oregon

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020

Every registered voter in Oregon will be sent a ballot in the mail.

Pennsylvania

General Election Deadline: October 19, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Rhode Island

General Election Deadline: October 4, 2020, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting, but for the presidential election only.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

South Carolina

General Election Deadline:

In Person: October 2, 2020

Online: October 4, 2020

By Mail: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

South Dakota

General Election Deadline: October 19, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Tennessee

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Texas

General Election Deadline: October 5, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Utah

General Election Deadline: October 23, 2020, also offers same-day registration to vote in-person on election day.

Every registered voter in Utah will be sent a mail ballot — make sure your address is updated or r egister online now

Vermont

General Election Deadline: November 3, 2020, also offers same-day registration to vote in-person on election day.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Virginia

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Washington

General Election Deadline: October 26, 2020

Every registered voter in Washington will be sent a mail ballot. Register online now and make sure your address is updated.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Washington, D.C.

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting.

This year, every registered voter in Washington, D.C. will be sent a mail ballot. Check the deadline to return by mail, or drop off at a dropbox location.

West Virginia

General Election Deadline: October 13, 2020

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Wisconsin

General Election Deadline:

By Mail or online: October 14, 2020

In Person: October 30

also offers same-day registration for in-person voting on election day.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

Wyoming

General Election Deadline: October 19, 2020 by mail, also offers same-day registration for in-person voting on election day.

Check your absentee ballot deadlines.

U.S. Territories

Voter registration and absentee ballot deadlines here.

We Can’t Afford to Ignore Kamala Harris’ Asian-American Identity

As an Asian-American woman, I was embarrassed that it took me until late into the 2020 presidential election primaries to learn that Senator Kamala Harris is half South Asian.

The mainstream media had been primarily focused on the fact that she was a Black woman running for the highest position of office in the country. However, what has been way too often omitted from the coverage is her Indian heritage. Upon being named Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick on Tuesday, Senator Harris became the first Black woman and the first Indian-American, South Asian, and Asian-American person to be on a major party’s presidential ticket. All these factors contribute to the insurmountable significance of this historic vice-presidential nomination.

Senator Harris is a daughter of Shyamala Gopalan, an Indian-born doctor and activist, and Donald Harris, a Jamaican-born economist and activist. Her parents divorced when she was a child, and she and her sister Maya were raised primarily by Gopalan.

In her memoir The Truths We Hold, Harris mentions that her mother was her most significant influence. The family often visited India when she was young—her mother’s family “instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots,” Harris writes. Kamala Devi Harris shares her first name with a beloved Indian flower, a Hindu deity, and a Bihari river. Her middle name Devi means goddess in Hindu.

Yet, there are still some folks who might be surprised to discover Harris’ Indian-American identity.

During her 2010 bid for California attorney general, many in San Francisco’s Indian American community were surprised to learn about her Indian ancestry. Until this week, the media often omitted her South Asian identity and merely identified her as the first Black woman so-and-so. During the presidential primary race, reporters and analyzers seldom referred to Harris as the “Asian American candidate”–such title only went to Andrew Yang.

When the speakers were announced for next week’s Democratic National Convention, many claimed – incorrectly – that the event included no Asian American speakers. Kamala Harris’ name was clearly listed. (One person to represent an entire minority group is, of course, is far from adequate, and Yang has since been added to the line up as well.)

Even as a U.S.-born East Asian American, I never fully felt a part of the American culture while growing up. To this day, strangers underestimate my ability to understand and read English, even though I write for a living, and English was the first language I learned as a child. Growing up in a predominately white town, I was one of the few “oriental-looking” students (as teachers phrased it) in school. My childhood best friend was South Asian, and we initially bonded over the fact that we were always “othered” by our peers.

Coming of age during the aftermath of 9/11 and a few years later, the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting, my Asian-American peers and I were seriously confused about our place in America. Bullied and named-called by our peers as a “terrorist” or “shooter,” it was challenging to grapple with our identities or ethnicities. America was the only place that we knew to call home, and so to be told to “go back to your own country” was so confusing and disheartening.

We would never have fathomed to see ourselves in the highest office. I get goosebumps just thinking about what this historic moment means to today’s kids who might be in similar shoes as I was back then.

Although there is no one right way to discuss or portray Harris’ identity, it does a massive disservice to her ancestors and the overall Asian-American community to completely ignore this aspect of her heritage and identity. To give attention to only her Black heritage feeds into the entrenched and outdated “one drop” rule from centuries ago, a practice that identifies and segregates people with the slightest African blood.

Harris herself has explicitly said that she doesn’t want to choose one identity over the other, but wishes to identify as simply American. However, from her childhood, when she was bused to another school district as a part of a desegregation plan, to her whole career as a politician where her Blackness has been a topic of contention, her racial identities have been at the center stage of public discourse.

We are far from being past Trump’s obscure obsession with birtherism, which has resurfaced again. In a news conference on Thursday, Trump wrongfully said that, “I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” It was a decade ago when he spread another race-based conspiracy theory that sowed mistrust in the background of another politician of color: President Obama.

Unfortunately, in today’s America, the reality is that anti-Blackness and the controversies of a biracial identity will continue to surface during the campaign trail.

The year 2020 has exposed the fact that most of America still doesn’t have the language or knowledge to speak about difficult racial topics, nor admit to the extreme level of white supremacy that still exists. Amid the outbreak of the coronavirus, hate crimes against Asian Americans have been at an ultimate high. Pundits (and our own President) have referred to Covid-19 as the “Wuhan flu,” “Chinese flu,” and “Kung flu.” In the following months, the brutal killing of George Floyd mobilized hundreds and thousands of people to protest against the overt racism and mistreatment against the BIPOC community.

Against this backdrop, we cannot afford not to explore the nuances of Kamala Harris’ identity and what her vice presidency would mean at the time in history we are at right now. Just like Barack Obama’s presidential win in 2008 was an unthinkable achievement, Kamala Harris’ hopeful VP win will illuminate similar sentiments for years to come. Over the next few months and years, the meaning of being an American in the 21st century must fundamentally develop into a new kind of paradigm.

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