S. Fla. Marks National Voter Registration Day

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – South Florida marked National Voter Registration Day by holding several voter registration drives ahead of the November election.

Elections officials in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties say more than 2.5 million people have registered to vote in the tri-county area.

That's about 57% of the total population. In Miami-Dade 52% of the population is registered to vote, 62% of the people in Broward are registered, and a whopping 68% are registered in Monroe.

The push to get those registration numbers even higher sparked National Voter Registration Day.

"I wouldn't have been able to vote," said Newly Registered Voter Trey Jinks.

Thanks to volunteers with the Florida New Majority, a non profit organization focused on educating and empowering Floridian voters, Jinks will be registered to vote in the November elections.

Jinks got registered to vote in a grocery store parking lot in Liberty City after grocery shopping.

"I thank God for that," said Jinks. "God showed me favor today!"

Volunteers like Rodney Wilder canvassed busy shopping centers looking for people who needed help registering.

"What we do is register people to vote, now it's their choice who they want to vote for," said Wilder. "It's self gratifying."

"There are 50 million Latinos in this country and only a very small percentage of them vote," said VOTO Latino Volunteer Otayme Valenzuela.

Valenzuela's group focused on getting college students registered to vote, hitting up college campuses like the University of Miami, where they not only registered them, but had them sign a pledge to vote.

"Some people register to vote but they don't actually go through with it, so I am serious and that's why I signed the pledge," said Aleksander Tucker. "It's way more convenient and will help lazy kids like me be more likely to vote."

Tucker just turned 18 and will be voting for the first time.

"It's really important to me especially with one candidate who is more partial to student rights and sensitive to loans and things important to me," said Michelle Stephanie Honorat.

Honorat just became an American citizen, and was one of many new voters taking advantage of the on-campus voter registration drive.

"It was very very easy, I thought I'd need my passport and all of this stuff, but it was very very easy, Honorat said with a big grin. "It saved me a trip!"