In an effort "to promote political involvement within the community," SubText Books, St. Paul, Minn., is offering voter registration forms for members of the Ramsey County community to fill out in-store, Bookselling This Week reported, noting that in recent years, owner Sue Zumberge and store manager Matt Keliher "have fostered an environment that supports an ongoing conversation oriented toward issues of politics and social justice."
"We thought that a small way for us to get involved is to offer voter registration forms in-store," said Keliher. "We're a downtown location, so there's a lot of diversity and a variety of people who visit us. We thought that making this available for people if they needed help was a way to [get involved].... One of the reasons we want to [do this] is because there's an idea about voter registration being a difficult process and people not understanding how to do it. Opening up to your community is important."
The response to SubText's initiative has been largely positive. "We put it in our newsletter and got a lot of feedback, which was really exciting to see," said Keliher. "If there're any booksellers out there that have even sort of considered this as something they could do within their bookstore, they should take this as an opportunity to push that a step forward."
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"No excuses, Arizona book people!" Changing Hands Bookstore, with locations in Tempe and Phoenix, Ariz., tweeted in featuring a photo of the "updated the language on our register receipts."
A message at the bottom of the receipt reminds customers that "July 30 is the registration deadline to vote in Arizona's primary election on August 28," and includes information on where voters can go online to register, update info, find polling places or request an early ballot for the November 6 midterms. "Let's do this!" Changing Hands said.