Today is the last day to register to vote in Tennessee

No more procrastinating! Today is the last day to register in time for the November 4th election. Submit your registration form to the Shelby County Election Commission at 157 Poplar Avenue in downtown Memphis.

Voter registration in Shelby County and the rest of Tennessee is up - largely due to the excitement of the Presidential election.

Early voting for the Nov. 4 General Election begins Oct. 15 and runs weekdays and Saturdays through Oct. 30. There will be eighteen satellite voting centers including the Shelby County Election Commission, churches and community centers throughout Shelby County. For a list of locations, call (901) 545-4125, then press 4, or go to: shelbyvote.com.

For voter registration and early voting information in other counties in Tennessee, visit the Tennessee Department of State's website to find out how to contact your local election commission.

Voter rolls in Hamilton County growing

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports a 7 percent increase in registered voters year to date. That's over 13,000 new voters. Davidson and Shelby Counties are also reporting thousands of new registrations.

Democrats are clearly being more aggressive in voter registration than Republicans in the push:

Democrats contend the increase in new voters bodes well for their party and their presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Local party workers have registered more than 2,000 voters since the first of the year. Their goal is to register another 1,000 before Oct. 6, the deadline to register in Tennessee. The election is Nov. 4.

“I think in years past voter registration has been a part of the ‘get out the vote push,’ but this year it is markedly different because the Obama campaign has such a grassroots campaign,” said John Bailes, the Hamilton County Democratic Party chairman.

Local Republicans have a more passive effort to draw out new voters, said Connie Weathers, the Republican Party chairwoman. The GOP provides information to anyone who comes into party headquarters, but they aren’t going door to door to find new voters, she said. There’s no way of telling whether those people actually will support the GOP candidate or even show up on election day, she said.

But what will the impact be? Experts agree that it won't have much effect in the presidential race where John McCain is expected to run away with a win in Tennessee. What about legislative races? New registrations are unlikely to have a significant impact because many of the competitive seats are in rural areas and not in the urban areas where the numbers are up.

TEP has been emphasizing voter registration on a steady basis since June. But what we're finding is that most of the members of the GLBT community who are on our lists or attending events (even big events like Pride) are already registered. It would be interesting to find some demographic information on who is registering--men/women, race/ethnicity, Zip codes, age, etc.

Another Pride winding down

The Tennessean ran this piece about Saturday's Family Day event, which is part of the Nashville Pride celebration. Several of those in attendance were interviewed about their reactions to California Supreme Court's decision to recognize marriage rights for same-sex couples.

The main celebration took place in Centennial Park today where several organizations and businesses had set up booths. I was pleased to see Dell represented there. It's always a good opportunity to sign up new members for your group. TEP recruited several new members, surveyed over 250 on hate crimes incidents, and even registered about 40 voters. The overwhelming majority of people who stopped by our booth had already taken care of their registration or change of address prior to the Tennessee presidential primary and are eager to vote in November.

Mike Stewart, Democratic candidate for State House District 52, stopped by the TEP booth to talk for a few minutes. He had been campaigning door-to-door yesterday in the Green Hills portion of his district. I didn't happen to see any other candidates out in the park, but I wasn't exactly looking too hard.

The best part of Pride is seeing people you haven't seen in about a year. It's like a family reunion. The mood was upbeat as people from all over Middle Tennessee got reconnected.