If you want to vote on November 6, it’s time to register. Because the deadline is Monday night, midnight.

Here in public radio, we are big fans of engagement in the political process. We’ve been working hard to bring you informative stories, an awesome Propositions Guide, and, every now and then, quirky entertaining election tidbits.

So, click on this link. Or the attractive “register to vote” graphic. You can register to vote online in about 60 seconds. If you have ever complained about politics in this country, it’s time to make your voice heard.

Register, then vote on November 6.

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Daniela Simunovic, an organizer for Communities for a New California, works with Edgar Acevedo and another young canvasser to get out the vote in the central valley town of Sanger. (Photo: Alice Daniel)

Daniela Simunovic is an organizer for the non-profit group Communities for a New California. She’s advising students who are about to walk a neighborhood to register voters.

“What are you going to do if somebody says they don’t want to vote?” she asks her students.

“Ask them why not?” comes a reply.

“In a friendly tone, of course,” says one of the students.

These canvassers are working in the small Central Valley town of Sanger, where only half of the 12,000 potential Latino voters are registered. And even those who are registered aren’t voting. Just 1,200 Latino voters — out of those 12,000 potentials — cast a ballot in the 2010 election. While Latino voters have become an integral part of California politics, participation lags across the Valley.

“If we were able to mobilize all the voters, we would really be able to change some outcomes in some elections on the issues that are important for our communities,” Simunovic says.

Those issues, she believes, include propositions on the November ballot. That’s why Communities for a New California is also conducting a fall campaign to inform Latino voters on propositions it feels are key to their interests, starting with labor rights and education.

“Like Proposition 32,  which will take away the power of working class people and unions to play in the political process,” Simunovic says, “to Proposition 30 which has the potential if passed to …raise significant revenues for our communities.”

Proposition 30 is Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax hike, which this year’s budget is counting on to avoid education cuts. Prop. 32 would ban the use of payroll deductions for political donations, which is expected to restrict the political influence of unions.

In addition, Latino candidates are running in two close congressional races in the Valley. In Congressional District 10, farmworker-turned-astronaut Jose Hernandez is taking on Republican incumbent Jeff Denham; in Congressional District 21, in the South Valley, Hispanic chamber of commerce president John Hernandez faces state assemblyman David Valadao.

Both Jose Hernandez and John Hernandez are Democrats. And Latino voters in California favor the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by a margin of three to one in voter registration.

But the drive to register Latinos is more about giving this under-represented community a voice than it is about party affiliation, say organizers like Arnulfo De La Cruz, California Director of the non-partisan Mi Familia Vota. And efforts to engage voters need to increase in the Central Valley, he says.

“Traditionally the resources are given to our more urban centers like the Los Angeles County area, the Bay Area — San Francisco and Oakland,” De La Cruz says. “So I do think the Central Valley has been neglected.”

More than 250,000 eligible Latino voters in the San Joaquin Valley have not registered, De La Cruz explains, adding that his organization is engaged in a long-term collaboration effort with churches, unions and community organizations in the Central Valley to make Latinos a “more powerful political force.”

If this effort is successful, he says, “both parties — both Republicans and Democrats — would have to take into account that there’s this electorate that hasn’t been active in the past, that’s now kind of bolstered and strong and participating.”

Back in Sanger, Simunovic’s student organizers are busy going door to door. One of those students, 22-year-old Edgar Acevedo, grew up in Sanger and believes Latino voters there have been neglected. He first became a voter himself when someone knocked on his door wielding a form four years ago. Now he knows that those who participate in the political process have a say even in small-town politics.

“They decide what streets get redone, what schools get more money, you know, this and that,” Acevedo says. “I grew up in this town, and I’d like to see you know good things come to it.”

As he knocks on doors, he’s met with plenty of resistance. So far today, he’s been turned away at three houses. But Acevedo thinks it’s worth the effort. At the fourth residence, success: he helps 45-year-old Arturo Daona fill out his voter registration form.

Lisa Garcia Bedolla is Chair of the Center for Latino Policy Research at UC Berkeley. She worked on a research project that evaluated past get-out-the-vote efforts. Voting is habit forming, she says, citing research from the last presidential election.

“Having been contacted once in a previous electoral cycle made you 30 percentage points more likely to vote in the 2008 presidential election,” Bedolla says. “That’s a pretty significant increase in the propensity to vote.”

Still, most campaigns do not mobilize unlikely or low propensity voters. They also overlook another universe of potential voters: people who aren’t citizens but could be. There are more than 180,000 legal immigrants in the valley from Mexico alone, among them Acevedo’s parents.

“I’m trying to help them out but it’s tough. It’s expensive also,” Acevedo says. “So don’t think it’s just like ‘oh you know I’m going to go take the test and become a citizen.’ It takes time and money.”

Mi Familia Vota is beginning to address these needs in the Valley, says De La Cruz. It’s not if the Valley’s going to change, he adds, it’s when.

Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson addresses Obama faithful at Everett and Jones restaurant in Oakland. (Photo: Caitlin Esch)

NAACP volunteer Gayle Akins pitches a table and spreads out voter registration forms at an anti-violence rally outside Oakland City Hall. She’s capitalizing on the support that President Barack Obama inspires locally: many new voters are registering simply to cast a vote for him.

“Sometimes they act like, ‘I don’t know if my vote counts,’ but they know a lot about what’s going on,” Akins says. “If we can convince them — register to vote — and actually get out to vote … it’s a really good thing.”

Still, many African-American voters are frustrated. Four years ago, Oakland resident William Edwards says he was thrilled when Obama won. But Edwards has fallen on hard times; his home is in foreclosure, and he doesn’t think Obama is paying attention to the concerns of his community — things like too few jobs and too many African American men in prison.

“He’s got probably 95 percent of the black vote, but it’s nice to vote and support him,” Edwards says. “But, what are we gonna get for it? Everybody else has an agenda of what they wanna get. So what’s in it for us?”

Oakland Civil rights attorney Eva Paterson has had her own disappointments over the past four years, but she says the black community’s romance with the president has given way to something else.

“It’s almost like dating,” Paterson says. “You date someone and they show their great side, and you get married and it’s like ‘oh, they don’t pick up their socks…’ So, I think we’re in the marriage stage of the relationship –where you still love the person but you see their flaws. You’re not as head over heels as you were. Because he was pretty amazing. And he still is pretty amazing.”

Paterson believes it’s up to black voters to put in the extra work to make the marriage last — calling in support of Obama or working in swing states where votes will be critical.

Volunteers were doing just that in the back room at Everett and Jones Barbecue restaurant in Jack London Square, as part of a recent phone-a-thon to support the president. Owner Dorothy King had brought her family along.

Later in the evening, Obama supporters gathered there to cheer on the president during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Enthusiasm was high, but local leaders — like Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson — took the stage after to warn the crowd not to get overconfident.

“So while we’re feeling real good about tonight’s speech,” Carson told the crowd, “the work has to be done from this time, until after the election has taken place.”

Carson says four years ago, more Bay Area volunteers were traveling to battleground states to register voters. This time around, he’s worried enthusiasm is waning.

“The energy level is not as high as it was when Obama ran four years ago,” Carson says. “The economy has affected a lot of people, and they thought that he was going to be able to come in and wave a magic wand and make things much better.”

But others in Oakland, like Reverend Daniel Buford, say the president has exceeded expectations. Buford isn’t shy about preaching for Obama.

“I think the brother—and I’m gonna call him that—I think the brother has done an outstanding job,” Buford enthused.

This time four years ago, Buford doubted Obama would make a good president.

“I was for Hillary. I had to really climb a hill to support Obama because I thought he was thin in the resume,” Buford said. “But he got the bad guy, Bin Laden. He stopped the hemorrhaging of the economy. And he’s been doing something for health care. That’s been needed to be done for years.”

If Buford is successful in rallying his parishioners to get out and vote, many local leaders are hoping those voters will affect change closer to home. At the polls they’ll also weigh in on Proposition 30, which would raise state sales tax and income tax for the wealthy, largely to fund education and Measure B, which would extend a local half-cent sales tax for public transportation.

Back at her voter registration table, NAACP volunteer Gayle Akins is keen to convince young voters they can make a difference.

“It’s not just about Obama. And it’s not just about Mitt Romney,” she says. “Because if Obama gets in, he’ll have four years and then we’ll have someone else in. So they really need to know the issues and why it’s important to vote.”

Akins says while young people may show up for Obama, she’s hoping to turn them into voters for life.

Listen to Caitlin Esch’s story

That’s right, while some other states are, controversially, adding new ID requirements in order to vote, California has opened up the process a bit with an easy-to-use online registration form. As the Chronicle reported Wednesday:

Made possible by a 2011 bill authored by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, the online system will allow people whose signature is already on file with the state Department of Motor Vehicles to transfer their voter registration form electronically to county elections officials from the secretary of state’s website.

“It’s already really easy to register to vote,” Shannon Velayas, spokesperson for the California Secretary of State’s office, told KQED’s Erika Kelly. “You can get a registration form at any post office. And the Secretary of State’s office has had an online application you can fill out since 2009, which over half a million people have used to register.”

But that form you have to print, sign, and mail in to your county election office. Not anymore. “You just need to fill out the online information and click send,” says Velayas. “The county elections office takes that information and verifies it, just as they would a paper registration card to make sure that person is eligible to vote.”

The deadline to register is Oct. 22. And you can still do it the old-fashioned way, of course — entirely on paper.