Getting ready to mail my ballot
Because I will be traveling in Ohio on November 4th, I had to register to vote Absentee this year. It’s a scary thought really: Trusting that the little form I fill out online will get to the right people. That those people will then remember to send the absentee ballot to the address I will be staying at instead of where I am registered. That if I actually get the ballot, that it will arrive in time and the instructions will be clear.
And who would have guessed it? Everything actually happened the way that it was suppose to. I got my little purple envelope in the mail and filled out my ballot card, carefully following the instructions and making sure to sign and date the envelope. And it felt amazing.
Here’s the thing: the process almost didn’t go correctly. You see, it wasn’t until I was at Camp Obama in the middle of September that they reminded us that if we aren’t going to be in our home cities the month before the elections, that we needed to register to be absentee.
So I looked up how to register as an absentee. I was very confused as I googled “California Absentee” because in fact, it’s now called “Vote by Mail” in California. Also- there are so many different websites, I didn’t know which one was official. One site gave me a form to print out and mail in. Another told me I could just fill out the form online and submit it digitally (obviously preferable). I chose the digital option and kept the printout handy just in case.
Filling out my absentee ballot
I left for Northern California and the Jewish High Holidays over two weeks ago. It’s a few weeks later and I get very confused when a regular voter registration kit shows up to my Los Angeles home with my polling location- around the corner! UH OH. So then I wait 30 minutes (not kidding) by calling the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office after searching on their website and signing in and seeing that my status was “Ballot Mailed.”
Come to find out- when you register “absentee,” I mean “vote by mail”– they send you your regular package to the address you are registered at (in my case Los Angeles), but they send your actual mail-in ballot to the address you specified when you registered to vote absentee, I mean… vote my mail. So my voter package went to SoCal and my Ballot went to NorCal. Just four days before I was to leave for Ohio.
The good news is, I am resourceful. I looked up each of the issues online, read the arguments and dissenting opinions and filled out my ballot accordingly.
I made sure to re-read the instructions so that my vote would DEFINITELY count.
And that’s it! I voted!
I am concerned about how difficult this process was. Because I was diligent, it worked in my favor- but for those that perhaps are not internet savvy or have language barriers– how their votes ever get counted is beyond me.
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