national voter Registration Day. We're in Washington, DC at Powell Elementary School and this is one of many locations really across the country that they have set up to help people register to vote. This is a critical election. we have talked to so many officials from so many different groups who are really trying to make sure that people are getting out there and getting hurt. so I wanna show you a little bit about what it takes to register here in DC. Table set up and DC is one of the places that will send you your ballot in the mail. My husband and I already got a warning essentially that will be coming unless we need to change our uh this is what the voter application looks like so this is what you need to fill out in order to register to vote and once you come here, you can also see they give you some information on voting also have a paperwork to fill out if you want to be an election worker now, this is really important for a lot of reasons because. Corona virus people to actually find poll workers because many of the people who often volunteer during elections, those people are seeing a lot of them are pretty freaked out to go into a polling place and to help with that. so there has been a harder time finding people to help with that. So they're asking people for pool workers as well as just to register to vote uh and today we're going to interview of the National Voter Registration day and she's right here so come over. Hi Lauren. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me so tell me a. Bit about one just the importance of registering to vote, absolutely uh so no matter how you plan to vote or who you plan to vote for getting registered is the necessary first step you need to you need to take in order to have your voice be heard um and we have a very big push to get registered today because if you do so today, you'll be able to get registered ahead of all the I'm just gonna say we have a firetruck going by very slowly right now we want this is such an important. I'm just gonna have Lauren repeat what she said, because this is a critical time again registering to vote is the first step when you get to vote. so if you could just start just from the part of you have a program in place to help people right absolutely so one in four eligible Americans is not registered even higher when you look at youth and communities of color and we at National voter registration day and all of our thousands of partner organizations believe very firmly um that this is due to an information gap and a lot of eligible voters never even being asked um so today. Are flooding the airwaves. We're out in community events like this and we are on digital social spreading the call to action to to get registered at the earliest date deadlines are coming up in early October, so if you get registered today, you will be eligible to vote ahead of Allstate deadlines. So I think one question that I've heard a lot is is it the same everywhere you know if I if I register in DC and then I move to Florida and I still registered. In DC or am I registered in Florida and two are the process is the same in each day. Tell me more about that. Yeah. So things vary by state all aspects of elections um depending on where you live so the best place to get a reliable and trusted accurate and up-to-date information about voter registration and really all things voting is your local election office um so in stumps dates, for example, you can register to vote online in other states you have to use a paper form to do it. some states you have to. 30 days ahead of Election day and others, you can get registered the day of at your polling station. um so I just really can't stress enough. consult your local election office. They are there to help and get you uh registered and ready to cast a ballot and one of the things that I've heard a lot from election officials and and just covering these elections is that this year be different than other years and that really the most important thing is whatever you do. do it early. I mean, is that kind of what you're telling people as well. Absolutely, I mean we've even been using the flatten the curve uh language with that. The earlier you can get registered and the earlier you can cast a ballot if you choose to cast a ballot ahead of Election day, um the easier the load is gonna be on the election Officials across the country come November 3rd The shorter the lines will be at the polling station and really you know getting registered to vote it takes 2 minutes. It's easy. It's simple and many states you can do it from your phone. Um so there's really no reason to wait. We need to make sure that everyone does it uh today and if not today ahead of state deadlines, so I hope it's okay with you. I have a couple of view. Who are sending in questions right now and I'm just gonna ask you cuz you're the expert on this. So this is Leslie K Nelson and she says, Can someone mail me a mail in or absentee ballots? So I think maybe just talking about how that process works to be helped. Yeah so the best way to find information it depends again on what state you live in um some state like DC as you mentioned are automatically mailing uh it's more important that you're registered at your current address early Um I would recommend that any go to vote.gov. Um to look up information about what your state's specifically is doing this year to facilitate voting um in a pandemic environment and I think you know one of the most important things we wanna tell people is that when you're voting by mail, you're gonna get your ballot in the mail. I mean be checking your mail because one of the things I noticed is they sent us something in DC uh and uh and they Look if you don't correct this, then this is where your ballot is going to go so please you know if there's anything wrong. Because there's a chance you know in that case your ballot wouldn't count so this all goes back to the things early. so I have. I have some more here. Lisa Sullivan She's the driver's license number to vote in New York City um so rest is different um in some states a driver's license or state issued ID uh to register to vote online um and you know that's the state's prerogative um so I would refer her again to the local election Office to sort of understand the how and why um, but the good news is. If you do not have that is a way for you to cast a ballot um it might look a little different. it might the process might be uh different, but you absolutely could let your voice be heard so for her Christian um I'm curious you know if she can't if she doesn't have a driver's license, you said she can still have her voice be heard. How does that I mean is does she have to go to her state website. I mean how does she have to figure that sounds like a lot of hoops to jump through? Yeah? Not really, I mean you can go vote.gov it will automatically redirect you to the New York State website for elections um at which point it should. Simple process to find a paper uh find the download for the paper form um do and print and mail it back. The good news is something that we have available on the national voter Registration Day.org website this year for the first time because of the pandemic environment is a feature where even if your state does not offer online voter registration or if you don't have a state ID and you can't get registered online, you can start the process on our website. you fill out your information within a couple of days. We will mail you a prefilled form with. Envelope that's stamped and address so all you have to do is sign it fold it and put it back in the mail um so this was sort of our way to make sure that even voters who do not have access to a printer who don't have access to stamps or envelopes or who don't have a state ID and therefore can't complete the registration process online. This is our way to make sure that there's still able to get registered um and get registered early. so Lauren come over here cuz I wanna show our viewers something uh that you pointed out to me and I think it's actually very cool. You have one in your hand. um can you talk about this water? Because they're just so cool and you can show it to the camera if you want to see it look at this, it has a QR code here so definitely definitely a coed era of a device here Tell me more about it. Absolutely. yeah. So this is one of so many exciting innovations that we're seeing across the country um to help voters get registered in a pandemic environment Um so many people don't know that voter registration has actually gone way down across the country um because of the pandemic the most common way that Americans get registered to vote is that their DMV. At in-person events like this one um which starting in March for all of the obvious reasons came to a halt um so what we're seeing is a lot of our partners thinking about ways that they can still get the register to vote and access voting information, but in a more touchless way um so the QR code right here is an example you don't need to share pens forms. you can just have people scan the QR code on their phone and get automatically redirected um to our site to. We have uh a bunch of doctors that have this QR codes on lanyards so as they see patients the patients healthy physically, but also can keep our democracy healthy by getting registered to vote. Um we have partners doing drive-thru voter registration and the partners doing online work like zoom, dance parties and trivia contests and really looking at in this new normal. How can we still get ready to participate in the elections? This fall? two questions? I think are really good. One helps everyone actually they both help everyone so mercy asks does the registration expire and obviously I think this is very important because we have heard those stories about people who show up on Election day and all of a sudden it turns out. they're not registered. Can you just talk a little bit about what that looks like? Yeah, so it varies by state um but the number one way to make sure that you are registered at your current address and you're on the roles is to check your voter registration status and that can take 30 seconds or less. uh you can do it online um and that's really the most fool-proof. Proof way to make sure that your registration is current, it's accurate and that your local election authority uh has an on file and then this one. I really love it. It's Jennifer. she asks, she says. I'm registered how can I help get other people registered so I am that would really help you guys right, Yes volunteers that would help us that would help all of us. um so yeah the best thing to do right now is to spread the word um among friends among family among your coworkers use every network you have at your disposal to remind people that voter registration deadlines are coming up. There's no time like the present. Make sure that you have the opportunity to participate in this very high-stakes election coming up great and then can you just uh show me you know if we could walk through over here just the form and I'm curious you know is this the kind of form that you would see anywhere. I know they all pretty standard. What does anything stand out about this or is it all kind of the same. They just have different processes on how they accept it. They're all pretty much the same. So this is the DC voter registration form um and Has basic information you have uh your address your date of birth. um the party if you choose to register with the party um there is also a federal national voter registration form um that is accepted across all states, so you have the option to use the one um specific to your local jurisdiction or to use the federally accepted form So II really love this question because I think this one is really resonates with people young people. it says. This is from saline ring. It says. I just turned eighteen. How am I supposed to get started? I think that's so important you could talk to people. Yeah, I agree completely. I mean the youth is sort of this elusive quest that everyone is looking to capture and turn out um now that you're eighteen you should get started by getting registered to vote um so you can go to our website at National voter registration day.org or go to vote.gov and get registered um and then really start to look at the many non-partisan tools out there to help you understand what's on the ballots so that now that you have the option to um to have a voice. In our politics, more broadly um educate yourself about what's on the ballot because yes, there's a very high profile presidential race at the top of the ticket um but in terms of the races that really impact you and your community and your day-to-day life um a lot of that is at the local level. um so the mayor of the city Council and the school board um so really try and find out um what the candidates positions are on the different issues that are of importance to you. I think that I'm not quite sure what the question here is, but uh I'm gonna ask a question about what the vet has said Okay and I registered to vote online, but then they send me something. Oh there goes our ten. It's live. It's Facebook live. That's what happened um, but it says they sent me something in the mail saying that I'm actually already registered so my question is not you know what exactly does that mean? I see it just means that you're fine and you're registered right. Mm hmm. and my question is that people who see that and they hear all of the stuff about you know. They're not being safe to vote. There's all these misnomers about fraud and all that kind of thing. So you know when you see, Oh, I'm already registered is that something wrong. Um what what do you say to them when it comes to the safety of the election? Yeah, I mean so with respect to the registration status, I mean, as I said before it takes 30 seconds to check online. So maybe you've got something to your address, but you didn't notice that it was addressed to a different person um and you just can't check enough so part of sort of everyone's regular routine as we head into the fall should be you know getting your back to. Getting your Halloween costume and checking your voter registration status, you should do that well before Halloween um, but you know your election officials at the local and state levels um and all the federal agencies involved in the space are working hard day in and day out to keep these elections credible and inclusive and participatory despite all of the challenges so really uh be kind to your local election official here she is working extremely hard and doing an excellent job in making sure that everything goes smoothly this fall and getting registered early is a big way of making sure that things. Smoothly at the polls on Election Day by keeping lines short and by making sure fewer people have to do last minute changes to their registration and cast provisional ballots uh on election day itself. Thank you so much. Lauren. I really appreciate it. We thank you for joining us and giving us all that information and thank you guys for joining us if you have any questions feel free to put them into the comment box. Also we have a new podcast out that is called Election 101 and we are taking questions for people who just wanna know the basics about the election. We did an. Already on voter registration tomorrow, there'll be an episode on Mail-in voting and absentee voting, but if you have any questions you can email ask Election one oh one@CNN.com and thank you again for joining us.