Today Jeri and I proudly engaged in what a surprising hunk of the country considers potential voter fraud. We voted in a way other than going to a damn polling booth. Who the hell still goes to polling booths? The same people that still use checks?
The government makes it amazingly easy to vote from overseas. There are lots of expats and military to keep happy. So we have no concerns for future elections. However the timing for this current election is awkward for us.
Our county Registrar of Voters has just started sending out the (potentially fraudulent) mail in ballots. With the delays they’ll experience with our current mail forwarding, we had concerns they wouldn’t reach us in time for us to cast our votes. And we’re leaving before early voting starts. What to do?
So a few months back I visited the Registrar of Voters office and asked WTF exactly do we do? I can’t speak for other counties, but the Orange County Registrar of Voters staff is perhaps the nicest and most helpful public sector employees I’ve ever come across. Even better than me, back when I was one.
They told me that starting October 5th, we could come back and request a damaged ballot replacement, fill it out and put in in any ballot drop box. Very cool! So we did that this morning and the place was empty.
It took them just a few minutes to generate new ballot packages for us. While we had to fill out a form, we didn’t have to even show ID, so, you know…fraud.
As they handed us our replacement ballot packages, they said when the original, mailed ballots finally arrive, be sure to destroy them. Because I’m me and lack inner control. I made a crack about that depriving us of the opportunity of voting twice.
Ya know, you don ‘t make jokes about bombs when at airports, and you don’t make jokes about voter fraud at the Registrar of Voters office. I know this now. They were still very nice folks, even when indulging morons.
Another item ticked off the final list.