This Is Annoying
If you are a voter in Okaloosa County, or any county that uses ‘mark-sense’ ballots [the one’s that look like the school tests where you have to fill in the oval], the number of amendments that are on the ballot means you will have two sheets to fill out. If you are an absentee voter and intend to mail your completed ballot back to the Supervisor of Elections, you need at least 65¢ worth of postage. Most people will need to put two First Class stamps on the envelop unless they take it to the post office.
The only place I found this fact was on the web site of the Supervisor of Elections. There is nothing on the return envelop other than the fact that you have to put a stamp on it. It would be nice if the County covered the return mailing cost, but that isn’t going to happen.
If you only put one stamp on it, the Post Office will return it to you with that stamp canceled and an insufficient postage message, so it will cost you a total of three stamps to reach the election office.
If this annoys you, blame the people responsible, the Republicans in the legislature who want to change the state constitution – constantly.
2 comments
I usually drop my mail-in ballot off at City Hall, which is walking distance from my house and the Registrar of Voters has a drop box there. Do you poor sods in Florida have that option?
I bet ya that our ballot is longer than yours. It looks like this year’s will be *three* pages front and back! But California’s lege is even more spineless than Florida’s, apparently, ’cause half the stuff on there is stuff the Lege should have voted in, ‘cept nobody in the Lege wants their name on it because it’s necessary but maybe not popular in their district…
There are two drop off locations, the two offices of the Supervisor of Elections, which hemorrhoids to get to, and there is no place to park if you do. That’s assuming you can drive, because there is no public transportation down here. They have changed the laws so that you can’t have more than a few absentee ballots in your possession, so the old method of dropping them off at a nursing home or assisted living facilities is now illegal, as they can’t just put a box in the office and take them to the SoE office once a week. The mail is pretty much all that’s left for the people who really need absentee ballots because of mobility problems.
Most of those are probably initiatives, which I remember from San Diego. They used punch cards when I was there, so I’m very familiar with a ‘butterfly ballot’ that starred in the 2000 election. I spent more time actually voting there, than any other place I’ve lived.
No one wants to take any responsibility for doing the job they were elected to do. Everyone is risk adverse. Even the people in inherently risky businesses want the government to bail them out when they get into trouble.