Received Mail-In Ballot Application - Post your experiences (Vanity)

[Jamestown1630]

Something happened here today, and I thought it might be useful to start a thread on individuals' experiences with mail-in voting.

We received information in the mail today about how to receive a mail-in ballot. The return address indicates that the letters were sent by our County Board of Elections.

However, we also received an extra one - for a man who lived here before we did, and whose mail we've received before.

The problem is, we've been here almost 14 years; he's been gone at least that long, if not longer.

I was pleased to see that I have to actually REQUEST a mail-in ballot - I was afraid that they were just going to send them out willy-nilly to every registered voter.

But why did I receive one for a long-gone former tenant? From what rolls are they taking these names and addresses? If they are taking them from 'registered voter' records, how often do they update those?

I would like to see posted others' similar experiences with this whole new 'system' - especially if you live in Maryland.

(We actually intend to vote in person. There has been some indication that we may have to do that at another location than our usual community one, but the last we heard, the plans were still to make it possible to do so.)

-JT

[Jamestown1630]

I’m not sure that means that the previous tenant of my apartment isn’t registered elsewhere.

Maybe he’s voting somewhere else; and the voting rolls are just sloppy.

Or maybe he’s dead.

Who knows? If we didn’t live here now, determined to do the right thing - and the person who did just threw the application on the floor under the mailbox - some other individual could guarantee that ‘stranger’ voted even if he WERE dead.

This is a sloppy system of voting, rife with opportunities for fraud and then endless contestation and litigation.

It’s also sort of inhuman, and cuts us out of a regular opportunity to meet our fellows while collectively engaging in our responsibilities toward the national life.

I’ve met and had wonderful conversations with people at the polling place. I never knew who they were voting for - we never talked about politics, just other stuff. But I enjoyed meeting them and knowing that we were both responsibly fulfilling our duties as citizens.

Everyone I’ve ever met at a polling place always seemed proud and happy to be there, and engaged others in a very friendly, civil way. Changing that tradition will create a deep wound to our unity and social cohesion.

[Jamestown1630]

I guess I’m stupid and naive. But I think it’s important to speak directly and seriously about serious issues.

There are plenty of frivolous things to joke about. I don’t believe that the sanctity of the individual vote is one of those.

[MrChips]

The good news is that the former tenant won’t get one.

[upchuck]

Another anecdote: My ex-wife received one for her Mom who died in late 2013. Trashed it.

[Jamestown1630]

Unless he's also registered somewhere else and the rolls are, again, sloppy. I looked up the USPS advice on this issue, and here is what they say:

'Reporting / returning misdelivered mail

'Despite our best efforts, occasionally mail is misdelivered, or is delivered to an old location for an individual. If you are receiving mail for the previous resident and do not know their address, simply return the mail piece back to the mailstream (by leaving in a Collection Box® or other mail receptacle) with the notation "Not at this address" marked on the envelope.'

http://faq.usps.com/s/article/How-is-Undeliverable-and-Misdelivered-Mail-Handled#report_return_misdelivered

(You may have to scroll down to 'misdelivered mail' if it doesn't pop-up. In my experience, most Government websites aren't very fancy :-)

That's what we've always done, and we'll do it again in this instance.

(To those who suggested that I 'shred' or otherwise destroy it: that's a felony, and I'm glad you're not my neighbors.)

[P-Marlowe]

I’m thinking maybe that person is a Trump supporter ;-)

[Jamestown1630]

Well, I don’t know who he is. But considering my county and neighborhood, the odds are against that :-)

[P-Marlowe]

The Dems will be dumpster diving for all these excess ballots and filling them out and mailing them back. If you throw it away, make sure you use it to pick up some dog poop before tossing it out.

[Jamestown1630]

I suspect that in big cities, or anywhere with huge apartment buildings, all anyone would have to do was scoop them up from the floor beneath the post boxes. They won’t even have to ‘dumpster dive’.

I’m sending it back to the post office, with the notation ‘not at this address’. That’s what we are legally required to do, as I understand the rules; and that is what we’ve always done.

It’s up to somebody way above my pay grade to keep the Post Office itself honest. (See my post 43.)

A reliable and trustworthy postal service was one of the most brilliant ideas of our founders - and first carried out most efficiently in a time of great need by Benjamin Franklin.

https://www.history.com/news/us-post-office-benjamin-franklin

One of the issues really hindering poor countries, is that they don’t have a reliable postal service - or any postal service at all. A lot of poor people in the world don’t even have addresses.

A good postal service is essential to any individual who wants to start a business, or to any group desiring to create a viable Republic.

[rovenstinez]

I move around alot. The person at my last house said he has set a ballot aside for me. I have a chance to voete 6 times. Probably will vote TRUMP... I am a Mexican. That is the truth. I vote in Mexico as well. Vote often, vote TRUMP.

[Paleo Pete]

I will be voting in person.

If I have walk there to do so in a hazmat suit and carrying my shotgun, so be it...

[Jamestown1630]

Leave the gun, take the face mask.

[Paleo Pete]

Face mask? Nope...refuse to wear the damn things.

1. Can’t breathe with one on my face.
2. Mask won’t stop a virus.

There’s a reason doctors dealing with ebola patients wear a hazmat suit with a helmet and metal cannister breathing filters...that’s the only thing that will stop a virus.

And if this virus is so bad we have to wear a mask, where the hell are all the bio hazard dump sites to throw our masks away? Where are the bio safe mask drops at every store? They have them in every hospital room for used syringes and the gloves they take off, masks they wear if necessary, where are they?? Where are the public bio hazard drop bins?

I’m starting to see masks lying around on the ground everywhere I go. Hard to find a parking lot around here without at keast 2 masks lying on the ground, floppping around in the breeze, where are the bio safe drop bins we can use to discard them if this virus ios the greatest threat to mankind of our lives like they seem to have convinced you it is??? If this virus is so serious, with the masks I see all over the ground everywhere, half this town should be dead by next Tuesday.

Screw a mask. Dr Fauci himself said it won’t help.

The point is, I WILL vote, and in person, it’s right across the street, even if I have to shoot my way in.

[Hot Tabasco]

I just don't feel comfortable voting by mail.

My township had a dedicated mail box outside their offices where I dropped mine off.....

[Jamestown1630]

Shoot your way in? Good luck with that, numbskull.

[Paleo Pete]

I didn’t call you any rude names and I don’t appreciate you doing it..

Good day dumbass,.

[Jamestown1630]

You suggested shooting your way into a polling location - potentially wounding or killing my fellow citizens.

I can’t hold with that. It doesn’t seem any different from the crap we’re seeing in liberal, democrat-controlled cities all over the nation.

[Paleo Pete]

What actually would happen would depend on what your “fellow citizens” might try to do to stop people from accessing the polling places.

If you remember, a few years back a group of violent thugs (new black panthers I think) showed up at voting precincts using billy clubs to keep certain voters from entering, or force them to vote the way they said.

Would you simply walk away and let them have their way?

I would not.

You also don’t know me, don’t know my situation or capabilities. I live about a block from the voting precinct, if someone tries to do something like this I have a way to see them without being seen, and I have a good sniper position too, to be able to handle it that way if necessary, or a simple walk up and tell them step aside. Depends on the situation, after checking it out. I hope to see no trouble at all.

I would not be surprised at all to see democrat connected groups try something like that again, but I don’t expect it out here in the boonies where I live. If they are that stupid, we have plenty country folk aside from yours truly out here who will not hesitate to pull out the shotguns. Many have concealed carry permits and will have arms in their cars. (Not allowed inside the polling places)

I don’t expect trouble, but if it does happen, I have a better chance of living to tell the story than an outsider who does not know the neighborhood. And I have the element of surprise on my side too. I have a couple of different routes to get there, through the woods if need be. Unseen till it’s too late. I’m not exactly talking trash here...and I know we’re dealing with people who will not hesitate to resort to violence. Situational awareness is not a foreign concept...

[Jamestown1630]

I’m equally afraid of radical ‘Right Wing’ people pulling crap (I saw the stupidity of a segment of ‘Prayer Patriots’ who decided to enter downtown after the Portland police asked them not to do that.)

If you go looking for trouble, you will find it. You’re a fool, if you think that shooting your way into a voting place will help your vote to count.

You’ll just become one of great a number, despite how it serves your ego to spout your machismo here.

[Paleo Pete]

Just what I thought. Another idiot trying to start an argument just for the sake of argument.

I don’t remember anything about “right wing people” in my post. And it won’t be right wing anyone trying to start trouble, including me. If you paid attention, you’ll notice what I posted was a hypothetical situation in response to potential violent voter suppresion from the left. Which they have done before, and probably will again.

Actually, I don’t expect trouble around here, and if anything does happen, we have too many redneck deer hunters here who won’t tolerate it.

I live 12 miles outside a small town, if anyone does show up to cause trouble it will most likely only be 1 or 2, and that would probably be dealt with before I even poked my nose out the door...then again, last time the sheriff’s dept was called out,, Itimed it, 27 minutes for them to show up so we’ll be on our on for near a half hour.

Now why don’t you go back to huffington post or somewhere you actually belong, this has nothing to do with right wing people, as you said, causing trouble, and I know of no such trouble being started. Unless you think they don’t have the right to speak up under the 1st amendment, like most liberals seem to think. I haven’t found anythning yet saying police told them not to show up either, so as far as I can tell, that’s a lie. I just finished reading a dozen articles. Not a word about it.

So it looks to me like you’re just pushing the same agenda liberals do, orange man bad, anyone who supports him has no right to speak up. Anything happens is far right violence, same thinbg MSNBCis pushing, Maybe that’s where you got this tripe.

Now go back to mommy’s basement and bother someone else.