If you noticed my absence yesterday, it was because I flew to Missouri early in the morning to do some book publicity throughout the week and hopefully some GOTV around election day.
Considering I was going to be here on November 4, I stopped by the Brooklyn office of the New York State Board of Elections the day before I left to cast an early vote for Barack Obama. I was really, really excited. Not only is voting a pretty emotional experience for me, but for the first time (save voting for a local public advocate candidate) I was going to vote for someone I really believed in, someone who really inspired me.
New York state allows early voting. One simply goes to the Board of Elections in his or her borough, fills out an application for an absentee ballot and is given the ballot on the spot to fill out. I did this in 2004 (I was in Ohio getting out the vote) and though the process was a little tedious, it seemed like an okay system to me. I voted and was on my way to Ohio, bright eyed and bushy tailed, thinking I was going to save the world with my GOTV super powers.
Fast forward four years. I'm not exactly working so hard to save the world, but I am working. So Monday I went into the board of elections around 5 p.m. to vote.
Except, I didn't get to.
There were more people than I expected. How exciting, I thought, all of these people have turned out to vote early. But all of these people were people who'd been waiting there all day. The entire state voter database, apparently, was down.
I panicked. If I couldn't vote today, I couldn't vote. I hadn't filed for an absentee ballot and there was no way I could make it back to New York in time for election day. But I figured I'd try to play it cool, if I wanted someone to help me in the final hour, I needed to be nice, and calm. I put my name on the waiting list (#105), took my application for an absentee ballot and a clip board and sat down.
People were buzzing around. Some worked for the Board of Elections and were trying to calm down potential voters who'd been waiting hours to vote. Others were making announcements to the crowd that the entire system was down and there was nothing they could do.
The clock was ticking. The office closed at 9 and I had some place to be at 7:30.
I very calmly approached the desk and asked if I could just have my absentee ballot and take it with me.
"The system is down."
"Right, but can't I just get my ballot?"
It turned out that unlike on election day, when all of the voter information is printed in books and voters are crossed off after they vote, if you vote early in New York, your information has to be pulled from the database... the computer. With the computers down, there was no way they could pull up my identifying information, there was no way they could confirm if I was a registered voter and there was nothing to prevent me from filling out an ballot here (except that the system was down) and then showing up on election day to vote again.
I tried to look up my voter identification number on my phoneputer, but I, too, was told the database was down. I wondered if this would not have been a problem if I actually carried around my voter registration card.
"Well, can I fill out an affadavit ballot?"
"Nope, that's only available on election day."
"Well, can I leave my application here and can you mail me my ballot?"
"No, you need to mail in your application."
"Yeah, but I'm here and it's here and it's filled out and it's supposed to come here anyway."
"Yes, but it needs to be postmarked."
I was starting to lose my cool. As were some other people in the crowd. One very large man, whose neck fat had worn the edges off of his collar, was pacing and sweating and asking more questions than I was. He looked like he'd come from a very stressful day on Wall Street and this obviously wasn't helping matters.
Another woman was yelling at the clerk. "If I'd have known I was going to wait three hours I'd have gone shopping and had some dinner!"
As much as I wanted to yell, I did what I do best, what I did every semester in the financial aid office: I got weepy. I went to the desk and put on my best (and very earnest) sad face.
"Hi, I understand there's nothing you can do about the computers, but I leave tomorrow at 7 a.m. and I can't not vote in this election. I just can't. It means too much to me. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't vote."
The woman told me to speak to the supervisor. I gave the exact same spiel. She told me she'd take my application, enter it when the system was back up, and mail a ballot to my mom's house.
I'll believe it when I see it.
In the mean time, watch this:
Related:
Obama Girl Didn't Vote
We Love Wilco and Voting, And So Can You!
