The Secretary of State's office mailed out the January Special Election voters' pamphlet (pdf) today. For having only two things on the ballot, it's a hefty read. The pamphlet clocks in at 91 pages altogether.

Most of those pages are pure bickering: forty six pages of arguments in favor of the two tax measures on the ballot, twenty pages of arguments against the measures.

Also arriving in Portland today is a unique issue of the Mercury designed to fill your voting needs. Check it out! The cover doubles as your 100% legally compliant voter registration form.

Register to vote! For the children!
  • Register to vote! For the children!

If you've changed addresses or parties in the year since Obama won, just rip off the cover, write out your info, track down a stamp and drop it in a mailbox. Easy. Awesome. You're welcome.

Of course, some people are not content with print.

"What is this, fuckin' 1920s Russia? Why can't I do this on the internet?" whines Mercury Editor Wm. Steven Humphrey, who still hasn't registered to vote despite the looming January 5th deadline. The Oregon legislature feels the same way, actually. Last session they passed a bill mandating that the state create a way to register to vote online starting March 1st, 2010, in time for the May primary.

Washington, California, Utah and Arizona have also voted to allow online registration, proving once again that the West > Rest of the Country. Online registration is good news for young people: when Washington created online voter registration in January 2008, 40 percent of new voters registered online and half of those registrants were under the age of 30, according to local political action squad the Bus Project.