Off-topic: Get ready for Election Day!

I’m going off topic for a brief time because this is so important.

As you know, November 4 is Election Day. This year, there will probably be a strong voter suppression effort to keep certain people—college students, people of color, people in urban districts—from voting. There are news articles about various regions, but really, anyone is vulnerable.

This problem is much more easily dealt with before Election Day, so please, if you have recently moved or haven’t voted in a while, or if you just like to nail things down, take some time today to make sure your voter registration is in order.

Vote411.org is a website that lists voter registration deadlines and other information for all 50 states. Use it to find out whether you can still register, whether you can vote early, and even what kind of ballot your state uses. For some states, you can verify your registration online. If you’re not lucky enough to have that, call or (even better) drop in on your local elections office and double-check that all is in order. This is their busy season, so be cheerful and patient!

If you have made up your mind, rock-solid, and your state allows early voting, consider doing that. It’s quicker and you’re less likely to be challenged.

If you can take the day off, consider working at the polls. It’s a great experience! You will get paid a small stipend, the work is pretty easy, and somebody usually brings donuts. Ask at your elections office if they need workers—they probably do.

If you can only spare 15 minutes or so, drive a friend or neighbor to the polls. Or check with your favorite local political organization (hint: they’re usually in the phone book) to see if they need volunteer drivers.

This is a huge election, so if you vote on Election Day, the lines are likely to be long. Please don’t take it out on the poll workers! Bring a nice manga to read while you wait. Mid-morning and mid-afternoon are the slowest times, so if you can, plan to go then. But if it’s suddenly 7:50, and the polls close at 8, go anyway! If you are standing on line when the polls close, you should be permitted to vote.

If someone challenges your right to vote, be pleasant but firm. It is probably helpful to bring along not just a photo ID but a recent utility bill or other proof of address. The poll worker should be on your side, and if he or she is not, ask for the warden or supervisor. Keep working your way up the ladder. If that fails, call a national voting rights hotline. I’m still researching these, but I’ll post a list closer to Election Day.

If all else fails, but only if all else fails, insist on casting a provisional ballot. This is your right under the Help America Vote Act. Don’t be discouraged if the poll worker says they won’t count it. If the race is a close one, the ballot will be opened, and if it is determined that you were properly registered, your vote will indeed be counted. I have seen this happen. The mayor of my city was elected by a single vote, and the provisional ballots were opened and counted as part of the recount. Your vote counts the most in a close election, so don’t let yourself be talked out of this.

One final thing: Everyone is focused on the presidential election, but most states have other races and ballot questions as well. If you haven’t had time to think about these, now would be a good time to start. I will confess that I still haven’t made up my mind about several ballot questions in my state, so I plan on reading up on the topics and talking to some friends whose judgment I respect over the weekend.

So go, prepare to vote. This is a big one, and you don’t want to miss it!

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Comments

  1. Thank you for making this post!

  2. Wow, yeah, good going, and I hope a significant portion of the America-inhabiting aniblogosphere takes notice.

  3. Great reminder!! In my opinion something this important is never off-topic, an it’s good for us to lift our noses out of the manga world, for even a few minutes.

    I would add, in some states it is illegal to wear campaign t-shirts and buttons, so make sure you are OK to do see if you feel the need. But campaign suppression is a reality, so I probably wouldn’t wear anything political on Tuesday.

    Vote early if you can, just to ensure that if something goes wrong, there is time to fix it. I live in Oregon and we have 100% mail-in balloting. Our voter-turnout is 10-15% higher than the rest of the country, and partially that is because people here love mail-in voting so much over going to polls. Think about it in your state (or applying for absentee ballots) in the future. All states have them.

    If you are registered, then vote. Even if you don’t want to vote for president, there are local elections and ballot measures that will affect you personally.

    If you don’t vote, then don’t raise your voice after Nov. 4. To vote is not only the right, but I think the responsibility of a country’s citizens.
    And it’s kinda fun, too!!!

  4. Thanks, John!

    Your point about T-shirts and buttons is a good one. A few weeks ago, someone came into the Elections office to change her address on her voter registration, and they wouldn’t let her in the door because she was wearing an Obama T-shirt. Because voters were casting absentee ballots in the office, it was technically a polling place, so the T-shirt was off limits.

    That’s interesting about the mail-in balloting, too. I have to admit that I do love going to the polls, voting on a physical ballot, and stopping at the bake sale on the way out. How do they guard against vote fraud with a system like that?

  5. @John

    Fun was when I turned 18 and got excited about accutally being of the legal age to vote……then I started paying attention to the election coverage and that went out the window…..

    Now its a year later and I’m just voting so I have a right to complain when everything goes horribly wrong. T_T

    I’m probably going to find voting for the budget of my local library more satisfying than voting for the choices we have for president.

  6. Thank you for this. I wrote a tutorial for Americans like me living outside the country, who can still vote via Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (FWAB): http://www.escapingthetrunk.net/?p=105

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