Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten defended his handling of grace period voter registration last week as state Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, D-103, and state Sen. Michael Frehrichs, D-52, expressed concerns about the mail-in stipulation.

In his domain as county clerk, Hulten called for grace period registration to be conducted through mail, instead of in-person registration. Hulten defended this decision and said, “It’s about treating someone who registers in October the same as someone who registers in July.”

But at a press conference Thursday, Jakobsson and Frehrichs repeated that Hulten’s way of mail-in registration disenfranchises voters. The representatives stood with new Urbana resident David Collier, who could not register ahead of time.

“The most frustrating thing is the extra steps,” Collier said, as reported in The Daily Illini. “I don’t know what (Hulten’s) reasoning is. I just know he’s making it very difficult on me.”

Mail-in registration isn’t fair, though, because it puts too many obstacles in the way for people who simply are unable to register on time. Instead of trying to keep it uniform, the focus needs to be getting more people registered to vote.

Reasons people didn’t register to vote before the Oct. 9 deadline varied — from hectic work schedules, recent moves or long stays in foreign countries — but some just simply forgot. Regardless of the reason, many prospective voters are left out of the loop because of Hulten’s unnecessary complications.

To set up a small operation where people could stop by the County Clerk Office and register all-in-one would not be too taxing on Hulten’s end. Grace period registration is for those who are pressed for time, so eliminating unnecessary steps to registration should be the goal. An extra trip to the post office may be too much for those most pressed for time.

Hulten and his office have already given people the ability to register late; they should take a step further and make the entire process easier so that as many people can register to vote.