Disenfranchised

I'll start with the punchline: Neither Tina nor I will be allowed to vote today in the most important Presidential election in years. How we came to this incredibly frustrating situation is slightly circuitous (no surprise there, given that election laws differ by jurisdiction) but worth explaining as another of many reasons we're exasperated with the East Coast.

For a several days Tina and I checked the PA Secretary of State's website to verify that we were registered. When we couldn't find ourselves we chalked it up to user error or the fact that we've moved three times in the 13 months we've lived in PA.  So when I phoned their office yesterday expecting to be told which polling place I should use, I was more than a little surprised to learn that I am not registered, even though the Secretary of State's office was easily able to find me on the eligible voter rolls simply by using my name and birthdate. Problematically, registration can't be done online - only by completing and mailing a paper form, or at the DoT - and provisional ballots are only allowed if you're a registered voter. In any case the deadline for registering for today's election passed in mid-October.

When we exchanged our Idaho drivers licenses for Pennsylvania ones we each indicated we'd like to register to vote in the appropriate jurisdiction. As a side note, since PA enacted a highly contentious voter ID law earlier this year that's received heaps of mostly negative national publicity, it made sense that we'd be offered the opportunity to do so.  Sometime later, the county where we lived at the time apparently mailed us a document asking that we confirm we actually lived at the address on our drivers license. {If the Secretary of State's office can find me just with a name and birthdate, why would a county need a separate physical piece of paper confirming my existence and address?!?} According to the Secretary of State's office we didn't return this magical document. Of course, we weren't aware we'd need to respond to the county (not the state!) in order to register to vote so we have no recollection of whether we returned it or not (I vaguely remember doing so, but seriously, how many forms do we fill out and how many pieces of mail are misrouted when you relocate?)

When we moved again, to Ardmore in April, we each changed our address with PennDoT online and chose the option to shift our voter registration accordingly. However, since the state didn't have us registered in the first place, the registration couldn't move with us.

Pennsylvania has once again made us feel unwelcome, this time by taking away one of the most basic US citizenship rights at the moment we most need to exercise it. The first time I've missed voting in a Presidential election since I was 18. Not because I'm apathetic, lazy, ignorant (OK, I might be some of those things from time to time, but not in this case) but because the state and local government's system of registering and managing voters has a big deep crack in it.