This is a gripe-and-moan session about the perfidies of Maryland local government; bear that in mind when deciding to click through.
[UPDATE] I have been informed, by people whose word I personally trust, that GOTV volunteers do not troll registration forms for voter information. My sense of personal oppression by the world has been thus lessened proportionately.
As some of you may remember, I finally got around to getting a driver’s license last year (lived in NJ, worked in NYC, everywhere I wanted and needed to go was on mass transit, I like to read – why get a car?). As part of that wonderful, wonderful experience – given the hoops that they expect Maryland drivers to go through, you’d think that there’d be less suicidal lunatics on the road – I naturally was given the opportunity to register to vote. I had moved in some haste in 2001: there was a Presidential election coming up soon; it seemed the best time to go through the chore.
Never got a registration card. In retrospect, this should have been diagnostic. But I did start getting literature from the local Republican Party shortly afterwards. Reasonable enough to assume everything was ticking along, no?
No.
Fast forward to October 2004 – ah, what date to choose? Hmm. Well, we could pick October 1, 2004, which, according to the memo, would be the date where my county’s election board decided that although I filled out an application to register to vote, they never filed it, so I’m not registered to vote. No, I’m not making that up – and if you don’t see why it’s double-take worthy, think about it for a second . Or we could pick October 6, 2004, which was the Wednesday after the Friday that this decision was made, and the date that they actually bothered to mail me the news. Or we could pick October 8, 2004, the day I actually got the news.
Now, admittedly, being told of a problem a mere week after it’s discovered is bloody amazing for government work, and if I had gotten this notice in, say, September of 2004 (which would have been a year after the initial application, which they know I made, but that they never filed) everything would be great. But I get this notification four days before the deadline to register. One day of which was Saturday, when the offices are closed. Another day of which is Sunday, when the offices are closed. A third day of which is Monday, which… wait, Columbus Day, which is a holiday, and yup, the offices are closed. That leaves Tuesday, and the offices close… gee, 4:30 PM. Double gee, some of us work for a living.
“But Moe!” I hear some of you cry. “Couldn’t you mail in a registration form?” Why, sure; in fact, the Board of Elections mailed me a form and a envelope. Actually, no. I don’t mind the lack of an envelope so much – I have my own – but being given two copies of the form letter* telling me that I wasn’t registered to vote instead of one copy and an actual form was a different story. By the time I sorted out all of this – which is to say, after I came back from a six hour trip to northern PA – it was too late to mail, and, of course, they don’t permit faxes and/or electronic submission. This admittedly makes a certain amount of sense, but the general lack of regard towards my time for a problem that’s their fault is highly irksome.
But that’s not what’s annoying me most. What’s annoying me most is that, in order to be actually registered to vote, I have to stop tomorrow and fill out one of those registration forms that DNCC GOTV volunteers are inexplicably pushing (Maryland is about as safe a Kerry state as you can get). Which means that I’ll be giving my mailing address (hopefully, not my phone number) to a political party – which means endless political spam, something that hithero was relatively absent from my home life.
Dammit, I can’t even let myself believe that it’s a conspiracy; I know that you should never ascribe to malice what can be attributed to government procedures. But believing that it was all a plot would make me at least feel better.
Moe
*Which means that I’m not the only one in this mess.
My town sometimes takes people off the rolls for not mailing in a survey that they don’t reliably mail to you, and/or failing to vote in any local election.
General tip: always bring proof of address with you to the polls on election day. An ID too, obviously, but some states don’t update your driver’s license with the new address when you move. A utility bill usually does the trick. That way they’ll let you fill out an affidavit and cast a provisional ballot that gets counted with the absentees as long as you’ve not voted anywhere else that day.
You have mail 🙂
Email responded to, hilzoy, and thanks for the tip, Katherine. 🙂
Dammit, I wish I’d known before now — after all, I’m one of those Maryland GOTV volunteers, and I could have helped you out. My suggestion is to either drop it off on your way in to work or do it on your lunch break.
FWIW, we volunteers don’t mess with copying down anyone’s address from the registration form — it’s easier to just get it from public records later. Every campaign does it, to at least some degree, and the major political parties do it for them, too. There’s also the fact that copying the information would require some basic degree of organization, and it then begins to distressingly resemble work. Fear not, I’ll make sure that your mailing address gets featured prominently in all future Maryland Democratic fundraising capaigns. (I’m joking! Leaving aside your reaction, The Dread Fiancee Roberts would perform unnecessary surgery on me! Without anaesthesia!)
Katherine’s tip about bringing ID and proof residence is good, but not failsafe. There have been cases where people have cast “provisional” ballots and had them thrown out because they were cast in a precinct other than the one the voter should have voted in.
FWIW, we volunteers don’t mess with copying down anyone’s address from the registration form — it’s easier to just get it from public records later.
So noted. 🙂
Damn, Moe, that sucks. Hope you get successfully registered come Tuesday. It’s one thing I feel more strongly about than that Bush should lose: that everyone should vote.