Disenfranchisement in PA
Ok, so here's one that's probably going to piss a few of you off. I know I'm still glowing-red angry....
For a few months I've been planning to vote for Wesley Clark via write-in. I've been refusing to let pragmatism enter into my voting plans. But, that's a different story. Here's a story of how I almost lost my presidential vote altogether.
I'm voting via absentee ballot, since I wanted to vote in Mercer County, my permanent residence. I was preparing my ballot (it has to be at the election office by tomorrow @ 5 pm) and went to do my write-in. On the right-hand side of the page, there are 21 lines for this purpose. The checkboxes for the guys who are on the ballot is to the left, labelled Presidential Electors. The blank lines have the same label. The directions tell you to write in your presidential electors on those blank lines.
Now, I'm fairly politically aware, and know the system pretty well. First off, I thought it was curious that the Presidential Candidates are listed as Electors - after all, I know how the Electoral College system works and all. But why, I ask myself, do I need 21 blanks for my write-in vote? Don't you just write in the candidate?
The answer is an emphatic NO. This required an Eagle Scout with the req.s for a Master's in Chemistry basically fulfilled and a life spent online a good 45 minutes to figure out definitively. And that's a problem. Back to this in a sec - first, here's how you do it.
First, determine the names of the 21 Electors chosen by your candidate for this state. Write them down, being VERY careful to spell each of them exactly as on the state rolls. Hope your handwriting is better than mine, and your memory, too - if any are misspelled, the name is invalidated, leaving you with no Presidential vote. This is the case for the absentee ballots, and I think (though I admit I'm not 100% sure) this is the case for the machines as well. None of this is mentioned anywhere in the packet sent to you by the election office. Nor is it clearly explained anywhere in the instructions at the top of the page, or above either part of the form.
Now, this is gonna be a Shit Storm (tm). Nader is off the ballot in a hotly contested state, and his supporters are fairly adamant - they will write him in. Most of them are going to do what everyone I've asked has said when asked how to write in a Presidential vote - they're gonna write his name. This is 1/21st of a vote for him. But, since he's not a PA citizen, he's ineligible to be a PA Elector - guess how many votes (1-1)/21 equals? That's known as Insult to Injury.
But here's the part that really pisses me off to NO END. Like I said above, I'm not sloch of a citizen, agree with my views or not. I'm a fairlly intelligent person, despite so of the things I do (;*)). And I had trouble with this. A lot of trouble. Thanks to my Ph.D.-seeking honing of my research skills, I was finally able to figure it out with the help of the internet. Could your mom? Your grandmother? The janitor at your 3rd grade school? How about an 18 year old kid who just graduated in Wilkinsburg? If all of them could not reasonably be expected to succeed where I nearly failed, that's disenfranchisement.
So, what are we gonna do about it?
For a few months I've been planning to vote for Wesley Clark via write-in. I've been refusing to let pragmatism enter into my voting plans. But, that's a different story. Here's a story of how I almost lost my presidential vote altogether.
I'm voting via absentee ballot, since I wanted to vote in Mercer County, my permanent residence. I was preparing my ballot (it has to be at the election office by tomorrow @ 5 pm) and went to do my write-in. On the right-hand side of the page, there are 21 lines for this purpose. The checkboxes for the guys who are on the ballot is to the left, labelled Presidential Electors. The blank lines have the same label. The directions tell you to write in your presidential electors on those blank lines.
Now, I'm fairly politically aware, and know the system pretty well. First off, I thought it was curious that the Presidential Candidates are listed as Electors - after all, I know how the Electoral College system works and all. But why, I ask myself, do I need 21 blanks for my write-in vote? Don't you just write in the candidate?
The answer is an emphatic NO. This required an Eagle Scout with the req.s for a Master's in Chemistry basically fulfilled and a life spent online a good 45 minutes to figure out definitively. And that's a problem. Back to this in a sec - first, here's how you do it.
First, determine the names of the 21 Electors chosen by your candidate for this state. Write them down, being VERY careful to spell each of them exactly as on the state rolls. Hope your handwriting is better than mine, and your memory, too - if any are misspelled, the name is invalidated, leaving you with no Presidential vote. This is the case for the absentee ballots, and I think (though I admit I'm not 100% sure) this is the case for the machines as well. None of this is mentioned anywhere in the packet sent to you by the election office. Nor is it clearly explained anywhere in the instructions at the top of the page, or above either part of the form.
Now, this is gonna be a Shit Storm (tm). Nader is off the ballot in a hotly contested state, and his supporters are fairly adamant - they will write him in. Most of them are going to do what everyone I've asked has said when asked how to write in a Presidential vote - they're gonna write his name. This is 1/21st of a vote for him. But, since he's not a PA citizen, he's ineligible to be a PA Elector - guess how many votes (1-1)/21 equals? That's known as Insult to Injury.
But here's the part that really pisses me off to NO END. Like I said above, I'm not sloch of a citizen, agree with my views or not. I'm a fairlly intelligent person, despite so of the things I do (;*)). And I had trouble with this. A lot of trouble. Thanks to my Ph.D.-seeking honing of my research skills, I was finally able to figure it out with the help of the internet. Could your mom? Your grandmother? The janitor at your 3rd grade school? How about an 18 year old kid who just graduated in Wilkinsburg? If all of them could not reasonably be expected to succeed where I nearly failed, that's disenfranchisement.
So, what are we gonna do about it?