And voter registration for the primary ends...

Well, it's now past 5 p.m., which means if you haven't registered yet to vote in the May primary, you're out of luck unless you can get it to a post office and get it postmarked today. You're also out of luck if you wanted to change your party affiliation - it's not one of the changes allowed after the voter registration deadline.

Last night I got an unexpected reminder of today's deadline - from my Cricket phone. Cricket sent out text messages to all phones in Oregon to remind them of today's voter registration deadline. It was a surprise and I was very excited to see them doing it. With their cheap unlimited plans and no contracts necessary, these phones are often times in the hands of those who are the hardest to reach - young people, low income people, etc.

It'll take some time as workers across the state input the information into the computers as quickly as they can. It's always a busy time for the week following the deadline, as county workers are trying to get the information inputted as quickly as possible so that the ballots can get mailed out to those people. Starting Monday, elections offices across the state will be flooded with calls from people wondering where their ballots are, and those calls will continue for the next three weeks. The sooner they can get those registration cards entered and the ballots out, the fewer calls will be clogging up their phone system.

As you may know, ballots hit the post office Friday morning at 12:01 a.m. It takes a few days for the ballots to get to everyone - the post offices are going to be dealing with more than 2 million ballots going out in addition to all the other mail. Plus, many counties all use the same Portland area printers for the ballots, which means that the ballots often are shipped out from the downtown Portland post office. So those in other parts of the state may see their ballots delayed a day or two as they head out of Portland.

I recommend waiting at least until late next week before calling the elections office to find out why you haven't received a ballot. And be prepared for being on hold or even getting a busy signal. When I worked at Multnomah County Elections in 2004, the phones rang off the hook. I have the feeling things will even be worse this year - and we're only in the primary. I can't even begin to think of what things are going to be like come this November.

If you've moved from one place in Oregon to another, don't worry - you can still get a ballot. Just get down to county elections as soon as you can and get your information updated. Some counties allow you to make address changes online as well. But don't wait until the last minute, else you'll be waiting in long lines.

Make sure to remind everyone you know that ballots are coming and that thier vote is important. We have a lot of hotly contested races this year, and some may come down so close that there are recounts.