[Text of Tweet: George Takei: If you are turned away at the polls because your name is not on the register, don’t walk away. Say this: I REQUEST A PROVISIONAL BALLOT AS REQUIRED BY LAW.
Don’t let them steal your vote]
Additional info:
“Provisional Ballot Laws are laws that require a provisional ballot upon verficiation of the idenity of the voter if a voter fails to present proper identification at the polls or when registering before voter registration deadlines.”
Poll worker here! Let’s talk about this “I DEMAND A PROVISIONAL BALLOT AS PROVIDED BY LAW” thing.
== TL:DR; Yes, provisional ballots are important! And yes, you should absolutely ask for one if you need to. But there’s a couple of things to try first. A provisional ballot is a last resort. ==
It’s very common for voters to come up to the “check-in” desk, and not be found in the poll book. Some non-nefarious reasons why that might be the case:
1) The poll worker doesn’t understand how to spell your name. 2) You’re not in the right precinct (this happens ALLLL the time) 3) New married name? 4) You’re a college student, and you are registered, but you’re registered at home.
Here’s my recommendation for what to do: * Make sure the poll worker is looking in the right spot (the book will be right in front of you; you can help find your name.) * Mention your home address to the poll worker. THey may very well immediately say something like “Oh! Yes, you should be voting in the cafeteria. Here in the GYM, we are your next precinct over.” * Ask politely to speak to someone to verify your status with the county. They will get on the phone with county folks, who will look you up in their BIG COMPUTER.
The steps above will, eight times out of ten, change you from the scary status of “Huh? you don’t exist!” to “Oh, right! Okay, here you go, voter!”
If that doesn’t work, ask firmly and politely for a provisional ballot. If you say “AS PROVIDED BY LAWWWWW”, you will only get an eye-roll from a tired and hungry poll-worker. But hey, you do you – it really IS the law.
If you don’t get satisfaction, all is not lost. Step outside the precinct and call the ACLU, and they will send someone over to have some FIRM WORDS with the Judge of Elections.
How do I know? I’ve had ACLU lawyers sent to talk to me during an election: “Hey, we heard that you were turning voters away!” they said.
I wasn’t, but I DID NOT MIND having someone smart and informed come to check on what was up. The ACLU counsel was smart, engaged, and knew the rules. Had I been trying some crap, this person would have SHUT. IT. DOWN.
So, the BOTTOM bottom line is: 1) Provisional ballots are a last resort. You can read up on them; they’re definitely riskier than a full, “real” ballot. You want to vote at your proper precinct as your first choice. 2) Don’t panic if you’re not in the book. Are you in the right place? 3) If you decide you do need a provisional, be firm, polite, and persistent. There’s no “secret phrase” that’s going to make us poll workers hiss with dismay: “CURSESSSSSSS! They know about the provisionalssssss!” 4) But do stick up for yourself! And if you don’t get what you want, call it in! There’s LOTS of folks to help!
This is such a big mood. Speaking as a full-time graduate student in the metro DC area, I don’t blame her for waiting. The cost of living here is grotesque.
stfu, this bitch just another LARPing liberal
Like most models, Ocasio-Cortez did not buy the outfit shown here – she rented it for a photo shoot. Also, the clothes come from an environmentally-conscious fashion line, the designers of which are sensible to her political platform.
I see why you omitted these details – sexism is more catchy when you neglect the whole story
Also:
Period
G*d people really acting like a bartender with student debt showed up to a photoshoot with a $10,000 wardrobe in tow. That’s not how any of this works.
Don’t let anyone forget the fact that the President of the United States skipped out on visiting military graves for Armistice Day’s 100th anniversary.
Because of rain.
He has golfed in the rain. He was inaugurated in the rain. Other leaders–and his own subordinates–made it out there in the rain.
President Trump, though? The man who loves our troops and our country? Yeah, it’s weird that he didn’t go to the ceremony and chose to stay in his hotel room. He left our country on Veteran’s Day weekend to visit Paris for the reunion, but could not be bothered to face a little rain in order to pay his respects to the troops.
He forgets the names of the fallen. He cuts funding for veteran welfare programs. He sends our soldiers to the border for needless exercises in intimidation. Then he claims that others are weak on the military and don’t respect our troops?
What a joke.
Oh, and when I say “don’t let them forget”, I mean “every time some alt-right nutjob comes at you, hit them with that question”.
Also, if you need to cite facts:
An hour. This isn’t a “scheduling thing”, this is something that should have been planned. At the least, the President doesn’t have staff who know how to plan a trip.
The thing is, this drags military respect into the conflict.
If you want bonus points, remind them of the time Hillary got pneumonia from attending a 9/11 memorial.
Never trust someone who fetishizes the military in one breath and spits on veterans in the next; just saying.
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
-Orwell, 1984
Normally, I feel like people are way too liberal in calling things “Orwellian”, because I’ve seen people claim everything from speed limits to environmental laws to privately owned security cameras in stores as being “Orwellian”, but Trump, in this instance, is utterly Orwellian.
I still support him? what do you expect me to say? i hate him and now support cruz?
do you know how expensive campaigns are? they’re not cheap. the average cost of a winning Senate candidate from 2016 was $10.4 million. Million.
Cruz had PACs/super PACs and special interest groups pouring millions into his campaign. Beto’s came from the people. i still support him, and I will continue to support him.
EDIT: so, i got another ask from someone (probably the same person) about how he wouldn’t give money to other dem candidates, so screw beto.
let’s do the math here. there were a total of 33 seats up for grabs in the senate. Subtract one to account for Beto himself. So now there are 32 senate seats up for grabs. If Beto’s campaign (his campaign, not him. He himself does not hold the money, it does not go into his pocket) donated to all 32 candidates, that would be $64,000.
Take it to the House. All 435 seats were running this time around. If the campaign had donated to them as well, that would come out to $870,000.
He can’t just freely give other candidates money. He is limited by federal law how much he can donate.
I know that it definitely looks scary looking outside in. take it from me, this is major progress. i’m gonna speak from a texas perspective again lol, but texas was effectively purple for this election, which is huge.
still angry, but i have hope that things will get better. I think enough people are pissed off that they are getting ready to fight for change.
So, I know I’ve been bitching these past two days about the election results, specifically what happened in Texas. While I’m still undeniably angry and I’m probably gonna turn this anger into action, I wanted to take a moment to thank y’all. Y’all have put up with me for the past ~month as I pretty much spammed y’all with Beto posts. You guys reblogged my posts and helped how you could when it came to spreading the word.
So to those who dealt with my constant Beto posts and my constan politics, thank you.
I won’t stop with political posts, not now, not ever. But still, thank you.
Something to remember, as the election approaches:
The work is never wasted.
Even if the Republicans keep control of Congress–yes, that would be terrible, yes, I would be furious and frustrated and sad and it would hurt like hell–EVEN SO: the work we have done to get here was not wasted.
I was part of the previous “biggest worldwide protest ever,” the global protests against the Iraq War in February 2003.
We lost. The war happened. Is still happening.
But some of the people who got involved then worked for Obama’s campaigns, a lot of them are part of the resistance now, and all of us learned something. The work was not wasted.
Even if we lose. There were Democratic primary debates in my hometown for the first time I can remember. Even if our terrible Republican Congresswoman gets re-elected, there’s still a broader and stronger Democratic Party organization in Mike Fucking Pence’s home state.
The election can’t be an end. It will only be an end if we win and get complacent, or if we lose and give in to hopelessness. We cannot afford either. We do the job that is in front of us. No matter what.
The work is never wasted.
The stories our world tells us are about Great Heroic Struggles With Triumphant Climaxes In Which Good Vanquishes Evil And They All Live Happily Ever After. It’s all about the one extreme emergency during which people rise to the occasion.
Problem is, that’s not how the world actually … works. That’s not how change happens. That’s not how societies are reshaped. We hear about MLK and the bus boycott and the protests, but not the DECADES OF WORK that came before, the organizing and the education and the legal challenges and the hundreds of thousands of people, from great heroes to ordinary people, who put in the grinding every-day work to make the world a better place, step by step, bit by bit. The big things–the speeches, the marches–were the tip of the iceberg. Nothing would have happened without the rest of the iceberg.
The 2018 midterms are the tip of the iceberg. They are incredibly important, yes. But without the rest of the iceberg, they mean nothing. Without ordinary people across America organizing and talking to their friends and coworkers and paying attention to politics and getting involved and volunteering (not just politically, but for all the nonprofits out there working to make the world a better, fairer, more just, more merciful place) the election is useless.
This is not a sprint. It is a relay marathon. If you can run a major leg, awesome. If you can help organize the marathon, awesome. If you can coordinate the people running, awesome. If you can hand out bottled water along the route, awesome. If you can cheer along the way, awesome. If you can remind people that the marathon is happening, awesome. It’s not about great heroes or one person doing it all or one climactic battle in which everything magically gets fixed.
It’s about ordinary people doing what they can. What you can do right now is vote. What you do on November 7 and the months and years following (no matter who wins the election) is stay involved and stay working.
Take care of yourself. Take care of others. Don’t hyperfixate and burn out. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Vote. And then keep moving on.
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