Help! Help! I'm bein' suppressed! You saw it, didn't you?

digitalaaronscustoms

9944

421

So I've been registered as an Independent since I moved to Oregon 15 some-odd years. I love the mail-in voting system here, and vote left-leaning in every election.

But this part May, I got a letter from the elections office saying my signature didn't match their sample they compared it to. Which, yeah, that's me. My handwriting is pretty terrible, and my signature can vary from borderline legible to a pair of chicken scratch scribbles. But the thing is, they wanted me to jump through a bunch of hoops before a certain date or my registration would be deactivated and my vote wouldn't be counted in the election. Cue record scratch and "Wha-what?"

I was told I would have to prove my signatures were mine by providing proof, and that I would have to schedule a time to go to an office an hour and a half away. By the time I got the letter the races I had voted in had all been decided, so I was like "Fuck that."

I let them deactivate my voter registration. I then went online the next day and reapplied through their website. Decided to tick the party selection box this time. They sent me a new voter registration card and all I had to do was sign the slip and send it back. I checked today and everything is confirmed and active. No hoops, no road trip, no bullshit.

If you need to check the status of your voter registration, go to https://iwillvote.com/. You can also check https://www.vote.org/. Make sure you're registered before your state's deadline, which varies from state to state.

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SnakesInBowties

Thanks for the reminder. Glad you were at least notified.

2 years ago |

Ffann

Thanks!

Your reminder reminded me to register for mail in voting.

michaelgjackson

Speaking as a democrat, I hope that you get it worked out and your preference for "independent" set.

I grew up Democrat. I was educated about the inequities of the world. My leanings are left to far-left. The only reason I was registered as independent for so long was that I didn't want to be contacted by political campaigns. But now I'm more interested in having a say during primary season.

Munchman347

'Your "X" doesn't match the one we have on file. Please read the next twelve paragraphs and check all 30 boxes either Yes, No or 'What does "Your" mean?' 😵

Blimjoe

Can someone explain registering with a political party... like if you register as a republican you can't vote for the Democrat candidate?

viila

In the main election you can vote for whoever you want. But in many states you can only vote in the primaries (where the parties pick their candidates for the elections) based on which party you've registered for. So DEM voters can only vote in the DEM primary and GOP voters only in the GOP primary. Your registration is also public record, so it affects how you're being advertised to, because the parties think you're interested in whoever you registered with.

Hint for anyone who struggles with their signature: it doesn't have to spell your name. And it doesn't have to be cursive. A signature can be any distinguishable identifying mark, as long as it's yours.

It also has to match a previous sample you've provided. So if you write a chicken scratch signature, you better be able to write the same chicken scratch signature next time. That's how they got me.

Icefyer

That's insane. With me, I have cerebral palsy. My hands are so shaky my signature can change MID SIGNING! Let alone between signatures...

This is why I fully support digital signatures. The IRS already uses them. I'm sure other departments of government do too. We just need to get state and federal election agencies to get on board. Unfortunately with a Republican-led House of Representatives this won't happen.

ConstantBitRate

Been registered in Florida for close to 35 years. Never even CONSIDERED checking my status. But for the past 8 years I've been checking it every 6 months or so. Still registered \o/

jonassoe

Absolutely insane to me that they can just randomly make you ineligible to vote without telling you, and you have to re-register yourself. In most democracies you can vote as long as you are a citizen of that country.

Redshadow09

Keep checking more frequently till the election. Something tells me they are going to pull a fast one close to the election date

CheckFlop

I recheck every so often too. I recently learned that the signature they compare to is the one on your driver's license.

So to tell if my vote is legitimate, they compare it to the signature on a physical card that has been photocopied at hotels, car rentals, and other places. This "security" can be defeated by anyone who has to copy their parents signature for school...

Knifesmith

Had something like this happen to me when I tried to withdraw money from a bank (in person, from a teller). It was my first account that I'd had from when I was a small kid who had just recently learned cursive. Cue ~15 years later, and my signature didn't match their original one. Noted that I had just deposited a check for well more than the amount I wanted in cash (signed), but no deal. Had to get a manager over, who stated that they'd need two forms of ID (only had DL on me) to...

process a withdrawal with a "non-matching" signature. Advised the manager to look at the signature on recent checks deposited to the same account etc..., no dice. Asked how many forms of ID they needed to close the account, apparently, just my DL... Literally walked across the parking lot with a cashier's check and opened a new account at their competitor.

goodtimehadbyall

Just out of the blue? What the fuck? Are you in eastern or western OR? That seems like a tactic to remove voters with a plan that many will miss the notification or not do anything about it in time and not be able to vote.

I'm in Washington County. I was pretty surprised by the letter, actually. But I was also grateful they even sent me a letter. They could have done it silently and I probably wouldn't have noticed till election day.

Interesting. I would have put money on it being eastern OR. Good thing you received it and didn't have it get mixed into some junk fliers. Plenty of pieces of mail haven't made it to our mailbox as they were delivered to the neighbors or who knows where.

METROlD

My signature looks completely different every time I write it. I can’t do it consistently. Ive tried. I’ve practiced. At this point in my life I would say it’s not my signature if it doest consistently look different.

If you want an accurate representation of my signature run a pattern recognition and cadence test on how I type my name.

I do the first letters of my first and last name, and the rest of the scribbles look the same between the two, lol.

Zetor

Your whole system is fucking weird.
1. Why do you have to register?
2. Why are you registering "as" something?

1) ostensibly to "save time at the polls" in proving you are who you say you are. In the beginning only rich white men who owned land could vote in the USA. We still have vestiges of that discrimination around today.
2) when you register as part of a political party, you are allowed to vote in that party's primary election (which is when the party chooses who will run in a general election).

Yes, it's weird. And biased. And everyone tries to change the rules all the time. I hate it here.

hamulusrex

I can sign 10 signatures one after the other and they'll each be different.

Are you me?

I'm afraid so

I'mma need you to cover this Saturday shift I have coming up this weekend.

DJOldguy

I have questioned why do we need to be affiliated with a Party, publicly. I asked about this in Oz during an election they held there and was looked at in amazement. The whole idea of the democratic process there is secret ballot. This, to me seems a far more genuine way of voting than being Party affiliated. I know, connected to the primaries option, so why do we need primaries? Why can't the Parties select their candidates and we can avoid an expensive, messy, often ungracious, spectacle.

I'm with you on most of this, but I do think primaries are important. You don't want a select, limited group of people deciding who the party's candidate is going to be.

It seems to work well elsewhere in the world, UK Australia, New Zealand, Canada and a lot of other places. Yeah, gonna get the occasional Party Hacks, but generally the high fliers are people of some skill and ability. I heard in Oz that one of their best Prime Ministers was a train driver and unionist before politics. That's the sort of person I think we really need, which we can never get with our current rules.

Rereading my comment, I think I understand why we will never get a "commoner" into the WH, despite what we hear about log cabins and such. We have only the Right and Far Right Parties, whereas many other countries have genuine Center-Right and Center-Left parties. Our Far Left, like Bernie and AOC would be Center-Right in most of those counties, not considered Leftist at all.

StarSumiaki

TBH I think it's fun to stay registered Independent because then you get a free GOP ballot to set on fire after you drop your Dem one :D

Not here, apparently. Some of the primaries are only for those registered to the party. I only realized this recently. It's one of the reasons I made the switch from Independent to Dem.

Wait, seriously? So what the hell is the point of being registered Independent, then over there?

You don't get contacted by political parties.

Since I moved to OR in 2011, I can count on one hand how many times I've been contacted by any political party. It's two. Once by Dems, once by Republicunts.

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