Living in a swing state, we are bombarded by political messages from every side, but one prevails: It doesn’t matter who you pick on Election Day, as long as you pick one.

Canvassers are covering the state and setting up voter registration drives in every corner with the hope that making registration cards readily available will somehow help more people show up at the voting booth in November.

As Election Day draws closer and volunteers scurry to register new people and convince them to vote, one issue continues to be overshadowed by attack ads, approval ratings and poll numbers: voter registration.

Not only making sure that people are registered so that they get a nifty little card that tells them where to vote come Nov. 2 and what their party affiliation is, but also making sure that people are registered properly — in only one place.

The New York Daily News discovered in a recent investigation that some 46,000 New Yorkers are registered to vote in New York and in Florida — nearly 1,000 of whom have voted in both places in the same election, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

But the problem could extend beyond New York. It could very well be happening right here in Ames, where a transient population of college students has the choice of voting here or in their hometowns.

The problem: Officials have no way to track if or where newly registered voters have registered before. They rely solely on information provided by the registrant — a procedure that relies on the honesty of the person registering. It also cannot catch those who, like college students, have an address in more than one city.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002, intended to keep what happened in Florida four years ago from happening again, mandated statewide databases by Jan. 1, 2006. However, very few of those databases — including those in Florida and Iowa — comply with federal law.

Officials seem more worried about how the votes are cast rather than who’s casting them.

With debate still raging over the 2000 election — when a margin of 537 votes gave victory to George W. Bush — and another close race all but certain, the country needs to rely on more than the honor system to register voters. It needs to be easier for state officials to keep voter records updated and accessible.

As political groups storm swing states and knock on doors to the rhythm of “Every vote counts,” everyone — canvassers and registrants alike — needs to be aware of the issues beyond voter apathy.

Yes, every person should know that his or her vote counts. But it only counts once.