Keeping It Clean

We're less than three weeks from what will likely be one of the closest presidential elections in history, but widespread allegations of voter registration fraud have some wondering if we should be worried on the Gulf Coast.

Alabama has registered 299,324 new voters since January 1st, and more than 124,000 of them registered in just the last month.

"This is a big election and it's a really big deal, and I want to make a difference," says 20 year old Mikelle, a Mobile resident who registered to vote for the first time Thursday. "I've been putting it off for a long time, and I know the deadline is coming up next week," she says.

Florida's application numbers are even higher with 380,000 September registrations, and Mississippi has seen their voter rolls increase this year by 10% with 178,000 new voters.

"When we start to put the registrant in the computer, if they're already in there it pops up and tells us that," says Shirley Short, Chairman of Mobile County's Board of Registrars. Short insists Alabama has a state-wide system makes it easy to spot duplicate registrations. Officials in Florida and Mississippi, where the voter registration deadlines have already passed, say they have similar systems in place.

The deadline to register to vote in Alabama is October 24th. If you are a registered Alabama voter, you can find out where to vote by clicking here.