Voting in a Swing State

I am used to going to a local condo meeting room and having all the ladies welcome me, “Good morning, Dee” then I’d sign my name and vote.

For a few months we’ve lived in a new state, and I registered to vote over two months ago and got my registration card in the mail from the City with directions to call the Government Accountability Board if there’s any trouble.

There’s trouble a-plenty. I went with my shopping cart because I was going to stop at the grocery afterwards and walk home as  I knew I needed flour and other heavy things.

So they made me leave my empty bag up front and I took my wallet with Drivers License, Passport, utility bill and they gave me a green card with a number on it. One person told me to go to the line on my right. I’m a new voter and have lived here for over thirty days AND am on the voting rolls.

I showed them my registration card issued by the City. They made me go to the line on the left, which went way out into the parking lot. I went back to my bag to get my hat, scarf and gloves as I knew I’d be outside for a while.

All they did was keep coming out to ask if anyone’s last name began with the letters N-Z. Mine doesn’t so I stayed there for about 10 minutes until the first lady came back and got me and put me in the other line, which looked more promising as it was indoors and shorter. It turned out to be the registration line and took at least ten minutes per person.

Still in the longer line of long-term residents and voters, they kept calling N-Z? No-one? OK, we’ll let people just walking in the door go in immediately because their last name is from N-Z, making everyone angry because we’d already been there 45 minutes.

We keep waiting. I show a fourth person my voter registration card and he says to stay where I am. Finally I’m allowed to stand behind someone who is registering. It’s over an hour now. I finally get to sit at the table and place my voter registration card in front of the volunteer. She hands me an application and I ask her to look at the card and tell her I’m on the rolls (I checked online).

She went over to the “Registered” table and I was afraid she’d send me back in the hall where they were still only calling “N to Z” but she didn’t. She made me 2nd in line in the A-M and all I had to do was verify my address and sign my name and get a ballot.

The ballots were unclear as to how to vote and I messed up but asked the monitor before submitting it and corrected my mistakes.

When I emerged from the room, the gentleman who had told me to stay in line apologized for the wait. I told him it was OK, it would have taken just as long because my last name isn’t N-Z.

Dear Voting Regulators:

Before I contact you I had to let my readers know what I and many others are going through this morning. It appears as if you do not want people to go to the polls and you want them to be discouraged and go home frustrated.

That is not the point of elections.We vote with a pencil that is not designed on a string to have enough room for a left-handed person to vote easily. The instructions, for a first-timer, are obtuse. They don’t say draw a line from here to there. I placed X’s and my vote would have been invalidated if I hadn’t asked if I did it correctly.

Doesn’t the government know the percentage of eligible voters whose last names start with any initial? You should be able, by now, to calculate and eliminate early voters.

The voting books don’t need to be evenly split between the alphabet. The books have to be evenly split depending upon the voting population!

In our local library, there were four poll workers in the “green card” section. I had a green card but no-one asked me for it or told me what it meant. It says “32.” One “green card” voter sat across from each poll worker until business was concluded. The poll workers had to call out the name and address of the applicant in a loud voice for the supervisors to hear. The lady told me she’s on an 8-hour shift and I may have to drop by some throat lozenges for them later on today. Sincerely, Dee

It’s creepy. My dad just called and I told him we were all going into a secret room, one by one, and it felt like a Holocaust precursor.

That’s when I realized what an insular world this is and that people are born here, live and die here and rarely go more than a couple hundred miles away during their lives. They distrust “foreigners” even from other states.

Am I a plant by one party to vote in a swing state? No way, I’ve been here for several months now and judging from our reception, don’t want to stay much longer unless things change for the better. We do have some very nice neighbors from around the country and world so feel more comfortable now.

Voting is a right first, and a privilege because we get to live in the USA. My first time here at the voting booths, I’d say we were all treated like cattle off to the slaughter. The parameters are all wrong, people don’t know what they’re doing and voters will give up and leave because they have work to do and kids at school and waiting a couple of hours to do their patriotic duty is shamed by their treatment by this obtuse voting system.

Please prioritize your alphabet and teach poll workers not to place someone with a valid voter registration card with unregistered voters.

Thank you. a disconcerted voter, Dee