April 19, 2010 is the deadline to register to vote in Pennsylvania

Thanks to David Yonki for bringing this to my attention: The deadline to register to vote in the May Primaries in Pennsylvania is April 19, 2010.

VotesPA.com, The Pennsylvania Department of State's online voting information and resource center: Register to Vote

This didn't really loom large in my mind, for two reasons:

1. Primary elections never really meant much to me, because until the 2008 Presidential Primaries I was a registered Independent and therefore ineligible to vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic or Republican primaries. At best I could vote on "Questions."

2. I figured pretty much everyone in the country who was interested at all in participating in the political process registered to vote prior to the 2008 Presidential election.

Karl Rove, in what little I was able to bear of his Fresh Air interview last month, maintained that his true genius lay not in his mastery of the politics of divisiveness (in which he denies he participates) but in his ability to target segments of the population who have traditionally not participated in the political sphere and bring them over to the side of the politician he is promoting.

Even after 2008, there are certainly still people whose political power goes unused because they have self-disenfranchised by failing to register to vote, thereby rendering themselves ineligible to participate in elections. I wonder if there were voter registration tables set up at the April 15 Tea Party rallies? If not, it was certainly a missed opportunity.

If you haven't registered to vote yet, April 19 is your deadline if you'd like to participate in the Pennsylvania primary elections.