Home > Olives & Thorns > Archives > 2008 > November > 04 > Entry
I voted today
Six weeks ago, I called the elections office in the county where I’m registered to vote.
Voting was simple: Just print out a federal form from the Internet, complete it and drop it in the mail. Wait a couple weeks for an absentee ballot to arrive. Then, mark your choices and mail it back.
It didn’t quite happen according to script.
After nearly a dozen international phone calls, an international fax, countless fruitless trips to my mailbox, and an express mail delivery, I voted.
Voting from abroad is, if anything, a test of democratic fortitude.
After waiting three weeks to receive my ballot, I checked with the elections office and discovered that the federal form I sent requesting the ballot never arrived.
Why not try a fax?
Sure.
That was received, and two days later, the elections office mailed my ballot, according to an elections official. It never arrived.
Undeterred, I called the elections office late last week. A man who answered the phone directed me to the federal write-in ballot, designed for those who request their ballot but do not receive it in time to vote.
I voted and dispatched my ballot by express mail, even if the law only requires it to be postmarked by Election Day. I wanted my vote to arrive on Nov. 4, so that when I watch the returns on television in the middle of the night, half a world away, I’ll know my vote is in there, counted just as if I had walked to Lee Elementary School three blocks away.
According to online tracking, my ballot arrived at the county clerk election division in Austin, Texas, at 8:17 a.m. today. Now, I’m turning on the TV.
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