Today is the last day to register to vote in the Aug. 20 primary, said Donna Graves, elections clerk for the Floyd County Elections and Registration Office.

To be eligible to vote, a person must be 18 years old by Aug. 20, Graves said.

She said other qualifications include being a citizen of the United States and of Georgia, not serving a felony sentence and not declared judicially mentally incompetent.

To vote in Floyd County, you must also be a resident of the county.

Eligible citizens who have not registered yet may do so in a variety of convenient ways, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

State driver’s license facilities, county and municipal voter registration offices, WIC and DFACS offices, and public libraries have voter registration applications available.

On the Web, Georgians may download and print an application, or complete their application using an electronic template, on the Secretary of State’s Web site at http://www.sos.state.ga.us/elections.

Forms accessed via the Internet must be printed, signed and mailed to the Secretary of State, and all applications must bear a July 22 postmark.

Floyd County had 38,926 active voters as of July 1, said Graves. There are also 10,654 inactive voters in the county, which means they did not vote in the last general election.

She said the inactive voters are still eligible to vote but may be removed from the registered voter list if they miss two general elections in a row.

Graves said voters age 50 and older turn out at the polls most frequently in Floyd County.

“We’re trying to get younger voters to get out and vote,” she said.

As of July 1, 3,535,502 Georgians were on the active voter list, according to the Secretary of State’s office. That is less than four years ago, when about 3.8 million were on the active voter roll at the time of the general primary. The reduction is mostly the result of list maintenance efforts that insure accurate names and addresses on the statewide database.

Secretary of State Cathy Cox said Georgians do not register by party affiliation and may choose which party primary to participate in on election day.

“In the months since last September it’s been exciting to see a rising tide of patriotism throughout America. Yet there are still hundreds of thousands of eligible Georgians who have not taken time to register to vote,” Cox said.

“There’s simply no better way to demonstrate our love of country and commitment to its ideals than by participating in the electoral process. I hope all those who are not yet registered, especially newly eligible young people and those who have recently moved to Georgia, will act right away to get registered in time for the Aug. 20 primary election,” Cox added.

Although there’s been no rush to register at Floyd County’s election office, Graves said, that probably will change as the general election draws closer.

“Before the primary, there usually isn’t much of an increase in registered voters,” Graves said. “But we usually see the increase as the deadline to register to vote in the general election approaches.”

Registered voters who are 75 or older, disabled, who will be out of their precinct from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on election day, or who meet other statutory requirements may submit an application for an absentee ballot to their county voter registrar.

Absentee ballot applications also are available on the Secretary of State’s Web site, or voters may mail or fax a letter to their county voter registrar requesting an absentee ballot. The letter should include name, address, date of birth, address to which the ballot is to be mailed, the election for which the ballot is requested and the reason for requesting the ballot.

If a runoff election is necessary in the primary election, it would be held Sept. 10. Those already registered to vote in the primary may also vote in the possible primary runoff election.

The deadline to register to vote for the Nov. 5 general election is Oct. 7.

If a runoff is necessary in that election, it will be held on Nov. 26