Disenfranchisement

Disenfranchisement was a common topic of conversation today at my workplace, first with three friends who are foreign nationals, and then with group of six college students. Two of the six (H. from New York and C. from California) had followed the proper procedure to request an absentee ballot before the deadline; however, neither received a ballot. They lamented that a number of their friends were in the same boat. C. had just come from the local polling place, where he tried to get a provisional ballot, but they would not give it to him because he was registered in California.

Six people is hardly a representative sample, yet disenfranchisement of one-third of these students is scary. Frankly, any percentage above zero percent is unacceptable.

While I would not be so quick to ascribe this to a nefarious ploy by the Bush administration to prevent college students from voting, this demonstrates an infuriating level of bureaucratic incompetence.

I feel their pain. During the 1992 election, I was living in New Jersey, but registered in Pennsylvania. This was to be my first presidential election, and I mailed my absentee ballot to Somerset County, PA. A few weeks later, I found my ballot in my mailbox with “Return to Sender” stamped across it. Apparently, the post office had sent my ballot to Somerset County, NJ, instead of Somerset County, PA. Dammit.