Voting Poll - Obama '08 A day at the voters poll Straight to business:

I head over to the polls today so I can vote for Obama.... not afraid to say it. Well, before I get into that, let me just say this:

I registered to vote at the last election but I did not - but on record I was registered. My wife and I have lived in the same house for 8 years so everything and all records are up to date. My mother calls on the last day of registration telling me that I'm not registered and I tell her that I am. Well, it seems that I'm not the only person to just get dropped from registration with no change in information. Had my mother not done any of the snooping around, I would have not been able to participate in this election. I haul ass to the library and re-register (this is October 6th mind you.)

Back to the blog: I get to the polls and first thing I notice is that an elderly woman has collapsed on the ground and an off duty fireman who is there to vote is taking care of her while the ambulance arrives. Anyways, I get inside with no issue and walk up to the counter. They swipe my license and tell me that I'm not able to vote this election because I was registered on Oct. 7th. WHAT?! The first thing out of my mouth was
"This is bullshit! I registered on the final day of registration."
poll worker: "Where did you register?"
me: "Here."
pw: "That's not possible as registration here ended on the 6th."
me: "Duh, then how did I get registered? If it shows that I registered here and your registration ended on the 6th, doesn't that mean that I registered before the 7th?"

Here is where I call my mother who is on the Obama campaign hear that this situation is happening often. The poll worker then speaks with her supervisor because something I said actually made sense to her. Supervisor gets on the phone with the board of elections to get it sorted out. Meanwhile I have my mother on the phone calling a poll attorney (every place you vote has a poll attorney in house - I didn't know this until then). Now I'm cussing, my mom's cussing and the attorney is informing my mother and I what to do. I get this long drawn out plan of heiarchy of who is next to speak with should things need to be escalated. The supervisor calls me up and apologizes and prints my paperwork out so I may proceed.

Everything is not cool though as I see this happening to alot of people who registered on the last day. If you ahve problems voting, don't act like a fool, politely ask to speak with the attorney on duty and file an incident report. Be advised: even if they tell you that you are not eligible for this election, make sure you at least get a provisional vote.

Happy voting for whoever you support!