As stated on the New York State Board of Elections website:
My ballot was over 5 weeks late. Mind you, I didn’t even ask for a paper ballot. I asked for mine to be mailed to me electronically. I should have received an absentee ballot over a month ago.
For my ballot to be valid, it must be postmarked by November 3rd and reach the election office in my district by November 10th.
So what’s the problem? Well…
The estimated delivery time from the Czech Republic to The United States is 18.5 days.
And that’s if I can find a printer ASAP. Due to covid19, all print shops are closed and I don’t own one.
The government was nice enough to provide two postage paid envelopes on A4 paper that I have to fold and seal with tape: one is the return envelope and the other is a “security envelope”. Unfortunately, postage paid doesn’t work for international mail. So I have to put the return envelope inside of the security envelope which goes inside a proper envelope and pay to ship it. It’s the matryoshka doll of packages.
In other words, voter suppression doesn’t just apply to people of color and poor people. It applies to the estimated 9 million American citizens who live abroad. To put that into perspective, the American diaspora would be the 11th most populous state in America if it was one.
I’m extremely lucky to find out about Federal Write-in Absentee Ballots in advance. If I wasn’t on top of things, I wouldn’t have known that they existed in the first place and it’d be impossible for me to vote at all. Even though I sent mine in through the embassy at the beginning of October, I won’t know if it is valid until November 6th, which is the day that New York state starts counting absentee ballots.
I get “Record Not Found” when checking my status with the state board of elections.
Don’t know if that’ll change when they start tabulating them though. Or if my vote will ever be valid. Regardless, voter suppression regarding overseas citizens is a big deal that never gets addressed because nobody gives a shit about us.
I’m impressed you’ve stuck with it this long but as a friend used to say, “you gotta let 'em know you’re there!” He stole it from the movie Slap Shot but still applies.
What I know is that I tried to track my ballot and it states that my ballot was sent to me via email on the 28th. Doesn’t state that it received the FWAB I sent a few weeks ago because they were late in sending me the absentee ballot.
This is the voter suppression that nobody talks about. Only 4.7% of the 9 million overseas Americans vote because of how absurd the process is. Generally speaking, Americans abroad tend to be more left-leaning as evidenced by Bernie Sanders crushing the unofficial Democrats Abroad primary (GOP has no equivalent to this).
Overseas Republicans in general tend to be more moderate. Republicans Overseas did a straw poll for the 2016 GOP primary. Trump finished third with 14.15% of the vote behind Rand Paul (34.43%) and Marco Rubio (27.58%)
Meanwhile, Democrats tend to be more left outside of America than within. In this year’s straw poll, Bernie Sanders got 57.9% of the vote (Biden and Warren were the other choices). In 2016, Bernie Sanders got 68.79% of the votes against Hillary Clinton. In 2008, Obama got 65.6% of the vote against Clinton. Not a lot of love for establishment tools among Democrats outside of America.
It wouldn’t benefit any of the parties to fix voter suppression among overseas American citizens since neither group is completely in step with their policies.
My voting saga is over. I had been running in circles with the registrar because I moved thrice since I last voted. But I was still going to vote today because I was still registered in my previous county and could vote a “limited ballot” in my new location. However my registration showed up in my current county this morning.
A few notes:
I love about 50 minutes away from where I used to live but am still in the same house district. Gerrymandering rules.
There was literally no wait on this last day of early voting here in Texas. I think I put blue over the top.
On the ballot itself I noticed the normal reality of an absurd number of republicans running unopposed in judicial elections was down to only a handful. It has been a long time since this happened.
Lol… I know of a couple of my wife’s friends who are married to Trumpers who very definitely aren’t voting the same way. I’m pretty confident their husbands have figured out they disagree from all the fighting about it too.
Imagine you’re a 34 year old no college white Trump supporter. What are the odds your spouse, who you met before politics mattered all that much to you, is also a Trump supporter? Your odds aren’t all that great lol. This becomes way way way more likely when wifey generates 50%+ of the family income. Submissive to their husbands is not a great descriptor for the average Millenial woman, which is almost certainly for the best.
agreed on all and tbh i would say that being a trump supporter as a 34 yr old today has got to narrow the dating pool substantially, even in red states.
I told this to my 32yr old white trumper brother months ago btw which is what your post made me think of and of course he disagreed, this coming from him that hasn’t had a long term girlfriend that I’m aware of since he was 18 or so.
All kidding aside this is the right argument to make your brother change his ways I suspect. You can statistically prove it’s ruining his dating pool super easily too.
