VOTE, you twits

Today, I was reminded, marks the final 2 weeks before the US Presidential election. Today, I also voted.

Way back in June, I requested an absentee ballot from Brooklyn but I still haven't received it. Worried about the time and the Warden's message on the US embassy website that I should have voted by Oct 14, I downloaded an Emergency Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot. I put it in the mail today, and if I get my Brooklyn absentee ballot in the meantime, I'm to send that as well.

DK, my token Friend In Politics, chided me for not calling Brooklyn's Board of Elections and asking where my ballot it. I did call, but didn't get through after 3 minutes of a phone tree. At this point, I sort of gave up - New York will swing for Obama, and my vote, if it ever gets there and is actually counted, won't (really) matter. But in the end, it's the principle of the matter.

This is taking a lot more work than just standing in line at my polling place and pulling the lever to exercise my right, as an American citizen, to vote. I am annoyed by this process, and now have a sense of what it must feel like (in a very peripheral way) to be disenfranchised. If I stay here for an extended period of time, will I have to go through this for EVERY ELECTION?

So. Grumbles aside, I voted, I wrote in BARACK OBAMA/JOSEPH BIDEN on my absentee write-in ballot, put it in a security envelope, which got shoe-horned into another envelope, and mailed it off. Now you homekids back in the States who have the luxury of the polls being open from 9am-9pm on November 4th better go vote too.

Followup: Read Jezebel's post about voter disenfranchisement. I found my emergency absentee ballot here: somehow I feel this website is part of the Help America Vote Act provisions. I hope my ballot actually gets counted…

Followup II: Even Ben & Jerry want you to vote! So DO IT!