PA Primary deadline?

February 4, 2008 12:53 PM

Is there a deadline to register as a Democrat to be eligible to vote in the upcoming primary in Pennsylvania?

I'm registered as independent, and I'm used to the primary in PA not meaning much, but it is possible this time around it could be important. I feel pretty strongly Obama should get the nod and Hillary will be his toughest opponent, not the Republicans, so I'd like to give him a vote now if I have time to switch my party affiliation.

posted by furiousxgeorge to law & government (3 comments total)

Elections are typically under the purview of the Department of State for each particular state. From that site I was able to find this document, which says it's March 24. Also this site confirms the date, and also confirms that Pennsylvania has a closed primary.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:01 PM on February 4, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

In Pennsylvania, the registration deadline is 30 days prior to each election. With our upcoming primary you can register any time before March 24.

Maddeningly, this information is only available as a .pdf from the state's horrible website, here.

If you need to know where to register, if you don't want to take for granted that your mail-in registration or your motor voter registration has been properly certified (and often they are not) you can find your county contact here.
posted by Dreama at 1:03 PM on February 4, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

It just occurred to me that you may want to wait as late as possible to register, and here's why: it's possible that by March 24, one party's nominee may be decided and the other's won't be, in which case you might want to consider registering for the party whose candidate is still undecided. Of course, which party you register for affects not only the presidential primary you vote in, but also primaries for state and local candidates, so that's something to take into account too.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:57 AM on February 5, 2008