By David Hawkings and Thomas McKinless

Who votes, and who doesn’t, will effectively decide control of the next Congress — and turnout has recently been weak in midterm elections. In part that’s because millions who could vote never get registered. But for 2018 there is still time to register nationwide. Registration deadlines are about a month before the election in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The final day to register is precisely 25 days out in New York, North Carolina and Oklahoma. The cutoff is closer to three weeks in advance in Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Virginia and West Virginia. It’s two weeks or so ahead of time in Alabama, California, Nebraska and South Dakota, and about one week out in Utah, Vermont and Washington. Only in these places can a person both register and vote on Election Day: Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Washington, D.C. Below is a transcript of the video. David Hawkings: The results of the coming election will shape how everyone in the country is going to get governed for the next two years. But only a relatively small percentage of the American people will make this big and consequential decision for everybody else. Who votes in the midterm election, and who doesn’t, will go a long way to deciding control of the next Congress. And the turnout will also say a lot about the public’s attitude toward the current state of civic upheaval. Robust voter turnout is a bedrock fundamental to a healthy democracy. And yet voter turnout in the United States is routinely lower than most established democracies. Low turnout generally reflects political disengagement — the belief that voting for one party or the other, or one candidate or the opponent, will not matter in terms of improvements to their lives or changes in government policy. One reflection of this is that turnout is always higher in presidential elections than in the so-called midterms, like what’s coming in 2018, when every House seat and a third of the Senate seats are going to be up for grabs. Elections where the whole country is asked to choose the most powerful person on the planet will naturally get more attention than elections for an institution — Congress — with record low approval ratings thanks to its long run of partisan gridlock. And, sure enough, the turnout in the last midterm, just four years ago, was only 36 percent – down 5 percentage points just since 2010 and the lowest in any federal election year since the middle of World War II. In other words, just three out of every eight people who were eligible to vote did so — 83 million of us. But here’s something almost as astonishing: Only five out of every eight people who are eligible to vote — American citizens older than 18 who are not felons — actually registered to vote. The rest effectively gave up their most important power as citizens. There’s still plenty of time for those numbers to change before Election Day — Tuesday, November 6. It may be already too late to register to vote in congressional primaries that are happening in some states this spring and summer. But for the general election, registration is still open in all 50 states and in Washington, D.C. A quick web search will take you to the rules in the state where you live. [For example:] How do I register to vote in D.C? But here’s a heads up: These 21 states require you to register about a month before the election. [Text on screen: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.] These three have a deadline 25 days out. [Text on screen: New York, North Carolina and Oklahoma.] For these eight, you have to register at least