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10/16/2008

Rock the Vote (and the Voter)

I'm sick of this election.

I hate that in the weeks before any election both candidates fight so dirty that voting becomes a lesser of two evils, rather than a choice for the right man for the job. I'm tired of empty promises of change and vague answers to direct questions about serious issues. And I get a headache from the incessant political declarations of various celebrities who don't seem terribly informed.

I don't put too much faith in polls, since I've been voting for 17 years and I've never been polled, maybe because I have a job that precludes me from answering my home phone at 2 in the afternoon. And I'm bugged by every "undecided" voter -- I do not believe you, you know which guy you want, you just want to be on TV.

But do you know what I really can't stand? The fact that I may not be ABLE to vote.

Since I recently moved, I thought the right thing to do would be to alert the local board of elections. Rather than vote absentee in Pine Brook, a place I no longer live, I filled out and mailed in a form to have my registration switched to Manhattan. Seemed like the right thing to do. Right?

Wrong.

About a month has passed, and still...nothing. Not a postcard, not a peep.

So, I called the NYC board of elections today and a woman (who was clearly eating during our entire conversation and made me spell my last name, no joke, six times) told me that they they don't have enough staff to enter the massive volume of applications they've received. So, maybe mine would be processed by Election Day. But maybe it wouldn't. And there's nothing she can do about it and I should just settle down, because lots of people are in the same boat.

Um, excuse me?

Pushing aside my disbelief that in this day and age ANYTHING needs to be manually entered -- especially when I got the form online -- I'm once again in awe of how criminally inadequate, outdated, and inept the voting process actually is. By comparison, it makes the DMV seem like it's run by NASA.

If dead people and Mickey Mouse can vote, why the hell can't I?

Oh, yeah, too much paperwork... I forgot.

Consider this voter officially rocked.

3 comments:

Jenny From The 'Brook said...

Tick tock goes the clock. Just called the board of elections -- still not in the system... a call to the cable news networks may be in order. Who knew I was such an activist?!

Anonymous said...

vote for pedro

Jenny From The 'Brook said...

UPDATE: I got my voter registration info on Thursday! Nothing like waiting to the last minute. I guess the woman finally finished her sandwich and decided to process some paperwork.