Finally confirmed I’ve voted in the US election
… after 8+ steps and 1 month
It's not discussed a lot how HARD it can be to vote as an American citizen living abroad...here's what I did to make sure my vote counted in Philadelphia, PA:
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Waited for my ballot to be emailed, which finally arrived on 18 Sept. It was emailed 1 day before the statutory deadline of 19 Sept due to a candidacy case in state court.
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Opened the encrypted PDF sent via Microsoft 365. Enclosed was a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot —not an official ballot!! Printed it out and realised the contrast was really bad and I had to write in all the candidates. I didn’t feel like it would be accepted.
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I found a better designed emergency ballot on http://www.fvap.gov and the candidates specific to my district on a diff website so I could copy paste everything in Adobe. Mailed it with tracking. Waited a few weeks and checked through Royal Mail to see if it arrived —it had
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Checked to see if it had been processed on http://www.pavoterservices.pa.gov/pages/ballottracking.aspx … and got an error message saying, "We are unable to match your information with our records."
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Found the email address to ask the Philly election supervisor if it had been received. Confirmed a few days later & said the online tracker does not work for absentee ballots.
I wish I was registered in a state that permitted me to send my ballot via the internet.
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Replying to @KaraKane_kk
Congratulations on your persistence. You are proof that it's barriers, not apathy that keeps so many from voting.
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In a project this year that looked at ranked choice voting to allow overseas voters to participate in runoff elections, we heard so many similar stories of how much work it takes to vote. https://civicdesign.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CCD_Overseas-Voter-Stories-2020-0624.pdf …
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