The Washington Department of Licensing can suck the moist sock lint from between my sweaty toes.
I try to be a responsible citizen. I went to the polls early. I took my pen and paper and went to fill in all my pretty little ovals. I was given a receipt for my ballot. My ballot that was marked as provisional, since I didn’t appear on any of the polling lists. I checked the web site every couple of days, to see if my ballot was OK. Today I noticed it was a “if you see nothing by 4:30PM today, call us before 4:30PM today!” note. And so I called the main office.
I’m not registered to vote.
How can this happen in such an age of technology? Beats the ever loving shit outta me. When I went to get my license from the DOL, they asked me “Do you want to register to vote, too?” Me: ‘Hells yeah! One less thing to do!’ They made me take an oath and send me home with a paper license. A week later I got my plastic driver’s license but I never heard anything about the voter registration.
Was that odd? I didn’t think so. Connecticut never confirmed the registration process: you didn’t have to worry about it. If you went to register, you got registered on the spot and that was that. I’ve seen a few instances where you’ve moved within the state so you might not be on your local precinct’s list, but they found you, on election day.
“You didn’t get a card?” is the response I hear most often. What the fuck is wrong with people?! If I had a card I wouldn’t have had a problem, right? And in today’s day and age, what are the odds that a simple voter’s card will get through the indiscriminate filtering of bulk mail? I throw out four pieces of US mail for every one I keep. There’s so much crap in my mailboxes that I welcome Spam as a lightweight substitute: at least online junk mail doesn’t fill my trash can. And I got a voter’s guide in my mail, which gave me a map of the town and list of polling areas; wouldn’t that be a clear indication that you’re ready to go?
“You didn’t get a card?” What is this obsession that WA state has with paper? Paper licensing, paper ballots, paper voting cards, paper oogats! For all the damned tree huggers out here, this state has the most offensive abuse of paper that I’ve ever seen, particularly when it comes to useless gestures of forms and requirements. And where was the DOL’s message to expect a card in the mail? No where. I’m surprised I wasn’t given a piece of paper to remind me to expect the piece of paper in the mail. Feh!
“You didn’t get a card?” When I told the people at the balloting office what my gripe was, they were sympathetic, but powerless – the law is clear in this instance. I told them that I have a driver’s license here, my cars are licensed here [registered, for CT readers] , have a proof of job and residence… “You don’t need any of that to vote. You can be homeless and living on the streets and you can still vote [so long as you’re registered]!” The inverse obviously isn’t true, even if it was a government agency’s fault that you’ve been locked out of the most active election in almost fifty years. Sneer.
If Rossi loses by one vote, I’m suing someone big and governmental – I don’t know who yet, but I’m suing someone.