Dear readers, we have reached the penultimate chapter of our story Ballot Voyage: An Approve Referendum 71 ballot odyssey!
Chapter 3, in which a ballot signature is validated and the voter is credited with single-handedly saving the Domestic Partnership law from the scourge of hard-hearted anti-family judgmentalists!
Well ok, maybe not single-handedly. In fact, my vote will have been for naught if your vote doesn’t join it in the R-71 APPROVED bin. Ahem!
Some housekeeping reminders:
King County voters can track their ballots just like I did by clicking here.
Ballots must be dropped in an official drop box or postmarked on or before Tuesday, Nov. 3rd to be valid. Don’t make the mistake of dropping your ballot in the mail after the Post Office has closed on the 3rd. Vote early to avoid mishaps, kerfuffles and discombobulations.
Mailed-in ballots from Pierce County require 61 cents in postage. Ballots from other counties require first-class postage.
If you want to avoid the mail, locations of official ballot drop boxes can be found in your voter guide and on the website of your county auditor or elections department.
Fair warning: if I learn on Nov. 4th that you forgot to vote or were “too busy”, as Bjork says you’ll meet an army of me. This will be an understatement!Cross-posted at Washblog.
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9 Comments
I really, really hate mail-in electionsThere is far too much to go wrong, and far too many anonymous, unsupervised and unaccountable hands touching an envelope that is clearly marked with my name, address and the fact that it is a filled-out ballot. Track my ballot, big deal! What am I supposed to do if it never arrives? By the time that is discovered, the election is over and I have been disenfranchised by big, gaping flaws in the system. And never mind the vastly increased opportunity for voter fraud: a college friend of mine was offered $100 for his signed but otherwise blank ballot a few weeks ago. That kind of crap is much more difficult to pull off with in-person voting.
And I fail to see how my having to pay postage is not a poll-tax. Sure, I can avoid postage by dropping the ballot off at a drop-side, but there are only about a dozen sites where I can do that; rather than walking two blocks to my old polling place I have to make a special trip across town, and God help those who live in the more rural parts of King County who must travel several miles to the nearest place. That kind of inconvenience is a poll-tax too, and one that US courts have traditionally taken a very dim view of.
I voted by mail because the government gives me no other choice. I just hope that these issues can be addressed before they make our elections a laughingstock.
Super coolI didn’t know there was an online tracking system. Super cool! I verified my vote is in.
woo hoo!two down, 999,998 to go.
Yup and yupWife and I have had our sigs checked and we have been credited for voting.
Pierce county optionsI’m in Pierce county, so I don’t have the fancy ballot-check thing like King does, but at the Pierce county site you can at least check to see when your ballot was received and mine was on 10/20/09.
Re: Pierce county optionsRuby, where were you able to do that? I’ve been searching for that part of the web site and cannot find it. Thanks!
My ballot is at Track Point #2King County has received my ballot, so please don’t send your big powerful army after me. :)
for those in fear of casting mail in votes:I have used mail in voting for my entire voting life. So far (knock on wood) my vote has alway made it to its destination, and been counted. I just looked it up for last years election and sure enought all my votes were there and accurate. I know that its hard to do something different when you are used to doing it another way. but even harder to take some ones word that it will work.
So I can just say, I have sent my Approve R-71 vote in for Clallam County and have peace of mind that mine vote will be counted.