How My Vote Didn't Count

Now that I'm back to blogging when it is nearly December, let me go back in time to election day...

It was a crisp and sunny fall afternoon. The stars were aligned for Obama...hahaha. OK, seriously...it was a very beautiful day. Mark and I packed up the munchkin to go find our polling place, which was about 2 blocks away. The town we live in in extremely dinky, even by rural standards. I think the population is nearly 4000 (up from the whopping 800 or so that lived here when I was a kid...blame the real estate boom). We first headed to the town hall because I assumed that is where they would have the polls. I was wrong. It only took us about 2 minutes of driving around to find another building, which was clearly labled "vote here".

We parked in the gravel lot and headed inside the metal Morton building. Yes, I said Morton building. For those of you who have no idea what a Morton building is, it is a cheap metal building constructed primarily of 2x4's and sheet metal. It is used often in farming communities to store farming equipment and what not. Keep in mind this building is in the middle of "town". Although our town is surrounded by cornfields and, in fact, still has a working field in the center (I shit you not. I totally have been meaning to take a picture of this because it is hilarious. On one corner a park, the other 2 corners have modest homes, and the forth is where the cornfield begins...surrounded on all sides by houses.) Anyway, you get the picture.

We walk inside and chaos ensues. First the overtly sweaty babbling woman at the end of the table tries to explain to us the process, which she clearly doesn't even understand herself. And its not like it was a complicated process: last names starting with A-L go to the lady at the end of the table, last names M-Z go to the lady standing next to her.

Ok, so we get in our appropriate lines since Mark and I have different last names. They find Mark's registration, he goes to vote. Mine, however, they cannot find. They call the records office and proceed to tell me that I'm not allowed to vote because I am not registered. I find this interesting since the girl in front of me got the same line. I explained that I had voted in the primaries and even double checked my voter registration at the DMV when I was last there only a few months ago. I also explained that my husband and I registered to vote at the same time when we moved here and somehow they had his information. The bumbling fools couldn't say anything except. "Sorry, maam. You can't vote today."

I insisted on being given a provisional ballot. No one in the room had even heard of this. I had to have one of the women call the "help" line, but this proved to be of little help to her. She handed the phone over to me so I could explain that it was my right to have a provisional ballot to the woman on the phone...the woman who was there to answer questions about voting!

After a long process of finding the appropriate documents, I cast my vote. When we returned home Mark called the CNN "problems with voting" 800 number and we were connected to someone in our county who was actually informed about the voting process. She explained that I was not in a unique position. They had been getting calls all day long about this. The problem seemed to be effecting women voters in our county who had registered at the DMV. How crazy is that?!

To this day I don't know if the problem was resolved. I never read anything about it in the paper and I seriously doubt all of the women that were turned away that day knew enough to demand a provisional ballot. Of those who did, how many took their proof of registration to the courthouse within 48 hours to make sure their vote counted?

I will never cease to be amazed by how easily I can check my email by phone while in the middle of the woods, or how I can register my vehicle by phone or internet, or how I can drive my car down a tollway in Illinois and my toll will come out of an IPASS account whether I have to transponder in my car or not (its true you only need to have the liscense plate on file). Despite all of these conveniences, the state of Illinois cannot manage to properly record my voter's registration information, but they sure manage to fine me EVERY TIME I've passed through a toll without an IPASS.

Amazing!