Accessibility and voting polls

[stillstANNding]

This feels contentious and it need not be.

ANN

[agate]

Rose's ballot didn't reach her in the mail, but I think her main point was that it wasn't possible for her to vote in any other way:

I called the Registrar of Voters, and I was told that my ballot was mailed on 5/7. Without it my options were: a) I could go to the county seat and get an emergency ballot; b) send someone to the county seat to get my emergency ballot; c) find an early voting location and go there to vote; d) vote at my polling place on June 5.

I asked, “What if I’m unable to do any of these things?”

The answer was, “I can’t help you.”

I'm sure that absentee ballots do go astray in the mail sometimes. There ought to be a way she could have dealt with it, even if the election headquarters had to send a ballot to her by one of those handy ways of getting a piece of mail to you fast.

The people in charge of such things might argue that (a) that would be costly, and/or (b) that they'd need some assurance that the person calling them to report never receiving a ballot wasn't just going to be voting twice--that is, lying while planning to send in a second ballot.

The answer to (a) is that yes, it might be expensive but we're talking about a Voter here. A VOTE that could have been cast but wasn't due to no fault on the voter's part.

The answer to (b) is that all of those ballots have to be signed by the voter, and I'm pretty sure that modern technology has ways of going through them to make sure that no person's signature turns up twice.

It sounds to me as if the person Rose got on the phone just plain didn't want to bother. Maybe that person had a political motivation for not wanting to bother--it's entirely possible.

If this ever happens again, Rose, I'd insist on talking to someone else there and keep insisting until someone comes up with a solution. There must be quite a few people with this kind of situation. I can think of several right here in this building who couldn't do any of the options you were given.

[funnylegs4]

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Rose's ballot didn't reach her in the mail, but I think her main point was that it wasn't possible for her to vote in any other way:



I'm sure that absentee ballots do go astray in the mail sometimes. There ought to be a way she could have dealt with it, even if the election headquarters had to send a ballot to her by one of those handy ways of getting a piece of mail to you fast.

The people in charge of such things might argue that (a) that would be costly, and/or (b) that they'd need some assurance that the person calling them to report never receiving a ballot wasn't just going to be voting twice--that is, lying while planning to send in a second ballot.

The answer to (a) is that yes, it might be expensive but we're talking about a Voter here. A VOTE that could have been cast but wasn't due to no fault on the voter's part.

The answer to (b) is that all of those ballots have to be signed by the voter, and I'm pretty sure that modern technology has ways of going through them to make sure that no person's signature turns up twice.

It sounds to me as if the person Rose got on the phone just plain didn't want to bother. Maybe that person had a political motivation for not wanting to bother--it's entirely possible.

If this ever happens again, Rose, I'd insist on talking to someone else there and keep insisting until someone comes up with a solution. There must be quite a few people with this kind of situation. I can think of several right here in this building who couldn't do any of the options you were given.

My guess it would be option B that they are more concerned about as that would be voter fraud. This is why some people are for photo voting ID. In the case of mail ballots however photo voting ID might not do much good unless the person mails a copy of the photo ID or something with the 2nd ballot to verify but of course people can get fake ID etc.

[renee]

Geez, i'm a poll inspector in what has become a fairly affluent town since the Reagan years
and for all the money that floats around, the local govetnment is brain dense about heavy doors
and curbcuts.
Looking like a po'd worker on the verge of death helps as well as being able to
demonstrate the reasons for a lawsuit may actually have helped produce a few
changes in accessibility.

Bless you, Catdancer.
It's hard not to love that southern thing.

[Earth Mother 2 Angels]

((((((Hugs to All)))))) ~

Today, I spoke with our mail carrier regarding my absentee ballot. I asked her to keep an eye out for it, and to make sure that it's on top of the junk mail, so we see it immediately. I told her that I didn't receive my absentee ballot for the primary.

She said, "Several of my customers have told me that they didn't get their primary ballot. There are probably more, who I haven't talked to yet. But one of my customers told me that he didn't get his absentee ballot, and he went to the polling place on Election Day. He told the poll workers that he didn't get his absentee ballot, and they told him that 'many, many voters' had told them the same thing."

She also said that she is an absentee voter and has been looking for her ballot too. She has delivered "a few, very few" ballots already.

She assured me that she would keep an eye out for my ballot and would walk it up to the door to hand to me, if I want her to do that. That would be great!

I have no reason to disbelieve her, so it would seem that a lot of us didn't get our primary absentee ballots.

When things settle down a little on the homefront, I'm going to call the Registrar to find out when my ballot was or will be mailed.

If I don't get my ballot, I will have to go to the polls, because I cannot miss the mid-terms vote. It infuriates me that I have to sleuth out my ballot to exercise my right to vote. And even worse, that I may have to go to the polls and stand in line for hours. If it is more than an hour, I will have to leave, because my back cannot tolerate standing any longer than an hour. I imagine there will be a big turnout, especially in our district, where we have an important house seat up for grabs, and one side is putting out false attack ads against the other. Guess which side I'm on?

In the primary, our district had voter machine problems, provisional ballot problems, inaccessibility for blind and disabled voters, and evidently many absentee voters, who did not receive their ballots. It sure feels like voter suppression to me.



Love & Light,



Rose