Monterey County tries to boost voter registration

Tuesday marked National Voter Registration Day and the Monterey County Elections office wants to remind folks to sign up. Some college kids in town said they’ve never voted before or they’re not interested.

For many of the students at Hartnell College in Salinas, their days are all about work and school and registering to vote may be the furthest thing from their minds.

“I don’t know it’s just something that, I don’t know because I’m 19 so it’s something that’s new to me, so I’m going to get the hang of it eventually,” said Daisy Barajas.

But for other students on campus, voting to them is a privilege.

“I just became a U.S. citizen I am excited to actually vote for the first time,” said Maria Jaramillo.

Hartnell College has also set up registration drives to attract younger voters. 40 different organizations that’s partnered with the Monterey County Elections office to sign them up.

“It’s very important that anyone that is a U.S. citizen that is 18 years old or older to be able to register to vote or update their voter registration,” said Greta Arevalo.

Greta Arevalo is the outreach program manager at the elections office and said it takes just a couple of minutes to sign up online, and they are promoting that on social media. If you’re not comfortable with the web you can fill out registration forms by hand and mail it in. So far Monterey County has more than 166,000 registered voters. They have a long way to go trying to register 70,000 more people.

“To register because I mean having the opportunity is awesome I think we need to work as a community together so we can be heard,” said Jaramillo

The deadline for November elections is October 19. The big registration test happens next year with the 2016 Presidential election.