To vote or not to vote?


Avid readers of this blog will know that over the last months I've become unprecedentedly passionate and vocal about politics (well, in spurts anyway). And for several weeks, I've relished my alt-voter status as a Republican in the City, looking forward to casting my vote in November.

Except that for some reason I was a little slow getting my act together requesting an absentee ballot. I had started the process of switching my voter registration to New York (finally), when a couple lawyer friends suggested my vote would actually count for more in Arizona, seeing as how it would contribute to the electoral votes my candidate actually needs.

Pleased to know my vote would not be a philosophical or ideological gesture only but could actually mean something, I decided to leave my registration in Arizona, and vote via absentee ballot. But then I dragged my feet, procrastinated, got distracted by other things ... and didn't actually mail the absentee-ballot request until Oct. 15. Last-minute Lucy for sure, as my parents used to call me, but it looked like I should just make it in under the wire.

A week went by. I kept bugging my roommate about her absentee ballot, so finally she requested it, and a couple days letter the envelope arrived. Still no political mail for me, bearing an Arizona postmark.

This afternoon I journeyed to the post office to mail an important job application and was alarmed by what I overheard. A woman was conferring to make sure Express Mail would get her absentee ballot back to the appropriate state by Nov. 2. My ballot had to be there by then? It couldn't just be postmarked by then?

I hurried home, anxious to check the day's mail. Sure enough it had come ... bearing nothing resembling my ballot. Well and truly worried by this time, I jumped online. Brief IM with my mom introduced the possibility I could somehow print out a ballot online and mail it in. But this proved not to be so.

Worst of all, when I queried the people in Arizona what had happened to my ballot they couldn't find me on the roll. But I voted in 2001! I cried. I was registered to vote there! I haven't changed my registration. How I could simply vanish from the rosters?

Finally I was put through to an "expert," who explained to me that since I hadn't voted in the last four elections (they have more than one a year?!!), I'd been dropped from the roll.

Deadline to register to vote in New York was Oct. 22. No chance of late registration here.

Basically I'm screwed. And devastated, at that.

But there is one possible (though very dim) light at the end of the tunnel. You see, multiple people have told me about this thing called a provisional ballot. I even called to confirm this with my politician friend out there.

Apparently if I can somehow get myself to Arizona on Tuesday, bringing my old voter-registration card with me, I can still actually vote. But that's a very big if.

And it's for that reason I'm prepared to do something very unusual and ask for donations. You see, I'm unemployed and have been since early May. Although I've managed to get by, there's no way I could jeopardize my fragile finances by buying a pricey ticket on plastic.

But I have faith in the blogosphere. People give money to 527s, people have donated money to get other people out of credit-card debt ... how hard can it really be to come up with one last-minute airplane ticket from New York to Arizona? So I'm putting it out there to you, the blog-reading public. If you want to help me realize the responsibility of citizenship that voting is, make a cash donation using Paypal. Donate airplane tickets, frequent-flyer miles, whatever. I don't really care as long as I can fly out there and vote.

Yes, this is a fairly desperate measure; I guess this is what shock drives me to. After months of defending myself and my party to Democrats, and cheerfully taking on Kerry supporters who accosted me because of my pro-W button, I feel like I suddenly don't even have the right to a political opinion! So much of what I've said in conversations and blog entries over the last few months has been predicated on the full intention of actually putting my words in action and voting in a manner consistent with my views. But instead ... this. Sitting on the sidelines. Watching.

Even to wear my pin feels like pretty empty support when I'm unable to vote for my candidate. I wonder: do I even have the right to wear it? Words unsupported by action are the emptiest of all conviction.

The not-so-fine print
If I raise some money but don't get enough for a ticket, I pledge to you that ALL proceeds (minus the processing fees Paypal deducts) will go to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, an organization that provides scholarship for children of servicemen and women killed in combat. Likewise, if I make more than the money needed to pay for a ticket so I can vote, all extra funds will go to the same organization. I have many friends in Phoenix, so all I really need is the money to fly there.

Media Inquiries
For promptest reply, contact me at 6467100805@tmomail.net.

posted @ 06:15 PM on Fri - October 29, 2004 remark! Email |  as quoted:
before I said ...  but more recently: 

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