Yes We Can (feel disenfranchised)
Nov. 4th, 2008 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oakenguyDeb and I rolled out of bed early in order to get to the voting station before the doors opened at 7 this morning. We thought that be doing this we'd avoid the line, ha ha--the rest of our neighborhood had the same idea, and we were numbers 67 and 68. But no worries--everyone was smiling, the weather was nice, and once the doors opened we moved along steadily.
We moved along...right up to the front desk where I was told that my name wasn't on the list of registered voters.
I was sent to the side where 6 or 7 other people (let's note, this is out of the 70 that had come in so far) in similar situations were talking to the Warden. Most of them had just moved to the area; they got orange forms. Two hadn't voted in the primary, which apparently meant something significant, and one poor sap had registered to vote at the DMV (which is apparently notorious for not passing this information along).
And then there was me.
I mentioned that I'd received the postcard in the mail telling me where to come and vote. This was a mistake, because the Warden immediately asked if there was any way I could go get it and I (in my uncaffeinated, sleep-deprived state) said yes. A postcard. That I'd received three weeks ago. Twenty minutes of wild goose chasing and recycling bin searching later, I decided to go back with other documents proving my residency (for whatever good they'd do) and try again.
This time I thought to stop and check the list of registered voters hanging OUTSIDE the voting station... and my name was there.
I went in and pointed this out to the Warden, who gave the sigh of someone who'd already had to deal with these flubs a lot in the past hour, and she quickly took my data and gave me a ballot.
So I DID get to vote. And all's well that ends well, I suppose. But still, this worries me.
We moved along...right up to the front desk where I was told that my name wasn't on the list of registered voters.
I was sent to the side where 6 or 7 other people (let's note, this is out of the 70 that had come in so far) in similar situations were talking to the Warden. Most of them had just moved to the area; they got orange forms. Two hadn't voted in the primary, which apparently meant something significant, and one poor sap had registered to vote at the DMV (which is apparently notorious for not passing this information along).
And then there was me.
I mentioned that I'd received the postcard in the mail telling me where to come and vote. This was a mistake, because the Warden immediately asked if there was any way I could go get it and I (in my uncaffeinated, sleep-deprived state) said yes. A postcard. That I'd received three weeks ago. Twenty minutes of wild goose chasing and recycling bin searching later, I decided to go back with other documents proving my residency (for whatever good they'd do) and try again.
This time I thought to stop and check the list of registered voters hanging OUTSIDE the voting station... and my name was there.
I went in and pointed this out to the Warden, who gave the sigh of someone who'd already had to deal with these flubs a lot in the past hour, and she quickly took my data and gave me a ballot.
So I DID get to vote. And all's well that ends well, I suppose. But still, this worries me.
