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To understand how important Ohio is in this year's presidential race, consider the following two facts: No Republican has won the presidency without winning Ohio since the 1800s. The last Democrat to win the presidency without Ohio was John F. Kennedy in 1960. In other words, as Ohio goes, so goes the country. We've got a job to do. Today is the first time The Plain Dealer is running the Ohio voter registration form. It won't be the last time. We're going to devote a lot of time and ink to get out the vote this year. That's the voter registration form, right next to me. It's valid in every county in Ohio. You can mail it or deliver it in person to your county board of elections. That contact list is in this section on page D4. Before we published it, we wanted to be sure you could fill it out and return it as a valid registration form. Finding that out sure was harder than it should have been. We started by calling Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's office. Had we stopped with that call, thousands of eligible voters would not be able to register using our newspaper's form. I didn't actually speak to Blackwell, who did not return my call. Instead, his press secretary, Carlo LoParo, said voters could not use our form because of paper weight restrictions. When I pointed out that the Ohio license bureaus use voter registration forms that violate the weight restriction, he said he'd have to call me back. Instead, his deputy, James Lee, called to say the problem is that election board officials would have to transfer the information off the Plain Dealer forms onto official forms, send them back to the voters for their signature again, and "that could delay the process." On that we agreed: It would definitely delay the process. In fact, it could stop a lot of voters from ever setting foot in a polling booth. Not to worry, though. The response was quite different from the seven county election boards in our circulation area: Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage and Summit. Every last one of them said they would accept The Plain Dealer form. Some boards will transfer the information, then cut out registrant signatures and affix them in the appropriate spot. Others will staple the newspaper form to the official one. Still others will simply file this form as their official record. We just want to make it as easy as possible for Ohioans to vote, they all said. So do we. Keep in mind the following rules: You must be a U.S. citizen, an Ohio resident for at least 30 days before the election, and registered to vote at least 30 days before Election Day. Register by Monday, Feb. 2, to vote in the primary; by Monday, Oct. 4, to vote in the general election. You must also be at least 18 years old by Tuesday, Nov. 2, to vote in the primary. A special heads-up to 17-year-olds: If you will be 18 by Nov. 2, you may vote for candidates, but not issues, in the Tuesday, March 2 primary. Board officials asked me to include a few other reminders: Fill out your form in black ink, not pencil, and don't forget to sign it. If you are already registered to vote, don't fill out another form unless you have moved or changed your name. If you're mailing the form, remember to affix a postage stamp on the envelope. We're going to have a lot of conversations about voting in the months ahead. I'd like to hear what you have to say. If you're heading up a voter registration drive, tell me about it. If you're a high school teacher or college professor registering student voters, let me know. If you're a student registering other students, I'd really like to hear from you. I have a real soft spot for young activists, especially this year, when so much is at stake. A lot of you wonder if your vote matters. I intend to show you it does, but in the meantime I can tell you this for sure: If you don't vote, you don't count. That means you won't matter at all.
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