New York voters may cast ballots three — and in some cases four — different times this year.

Upcoming elections are scheduled for June 26, Sept. 13, and Nov. 6 — and that's not counting the special election held in April in certain parts of the state.

To register to vote in New York, a person must be a U.S. citizen, 18 years or older on the day of the election, and a state resident for at least 30 days. People are ineligible if they are judged mentally unfit by a court, are currently incarcerated for a felony conviction, or on parole for a felony and not yet pardoned by the state.

The elections in June and September are both primaries and require a voter to be a registered member of a political party to participate — generally a Democrat or a Republican.

• The deadline to register to vote for the June 26 primary (for U.S. Congress and Senate races) is this Friday, June 1. Forms must be postmarked by that date and received by the local Board of Elections by June 6.
• The deadline to register for the Sept. 13 primary (for state offices) is Aug. 19. Forms must be postmarked by that date and received by the Board of Elections by Aug. 24. (Note: Sept. 13 is a Thursday. Lawmakers moved the primary to Thursday instead of Tuesday to avoid overlapping with Rosh Hashanah and the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.)
• The deadline to register for the Nov. 6 general election is Oct. 12. Forms must be postmarked by that date and received by the Board of Elections by Oct. 17.

Voter registration forms should be available at state and municipal offices as well as every Board of Elections office. Forms can also be downloaded and printed from the New York City Campaign Finance Board’s website in 16 different languages, but must be completed in English and then delivered or mailed to the local Board of Elections.

The only way to register to vote online in New York is through the state Department of Motor Vehicles. An individual must have a New York State driver’s license or non-driver identification card to use that system. The DMV’s system crashed ahead of the registration deadline for the presidential primary in 2016.

If you are already a registered voter and want to change your party affiliation for one of the upcoming primary elections, unfortunately that deadline is long past.

Under New York State law, registered voters who want to join a party or change their party affiliation must submit a new voter registration form at least 25 days before the general election the year before the primary – which would have been October of last year.

To change party enrollment for 2019, a new voter registration form must be received by the Board of Elections no later than October 12, 2018.