Category: default || By jt3y

Voting for the first time today? Take ID.

Voting for the first time in a new precinct? Take ID.

You say you already have a voter registration card, and it says right on it that it's sufficient ID? It doesn't matter. Take another ID.

When I moved to North Bittyburg, a suburb of Our Fair City, earlier this year, I changed my voter registration to the new address. This morning, I went to my new polling place for the first time and handed over my voter registration card.

"It says 'ID Required,'" the judge of elections told me after looking up my registration information in her binder. Sure enough, "ID REQUIRED" was stamped over my name and on several other names --- presumably newly registered voters, or voters who recently moved.

Neither she nor the polling place inspectors could decide whether the voter registration card was adequate.

Keep in mind that on the back of the card, it says, in capital letters, "YOU SHOULD KEEP THIS CARD ON YOUR PERSON ... IT IS IDENTIFICATION OF YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE AT YOUR NEW ELECTION DISTRICT, DIVISION OR PRECINCT. Under the law you must present a form of identification to the election officials on Election Day the first time you vote in a new election district, division or precinct. This card is an acceptable form of identification."

Under the "Help America Vote Act" --- the half-hearted attempt by the U.S. Congress to prevent a rerun of the 2000 Florida debacle --- states are allowed to request ID from voters. The idea, of course, is to prevent people from registering multiple times, or registering fictitious names.

The problem, of course, is that this is the first presidential election since "HAVA" was enacted, and there is bound to be some confusion.

Luckily for me, I had remembered to bring a wage tax stub, a phone bill and an electric bill, all with the new address on them. (My state driver's license still lists my old address --- the update card hasn't arrived yet.) The judge of elections complimented me on my "efficiency." (That made my day, although I admit I'm easily amused.)

So if you're voting for the first time, or you've recently moved, take ID with you. A utility bill, a photo ID, or a paystub are all sufficient, according to the inspectors.

And be grateful you're not living in Florida or Ohio, where Republicans are going to make concerted efforts to challenge voters in heavily Democratic areas to prove they're eligible to vote. They're challenging up to 10,000 new registrations in Pennsylvania, according to Dennis Roddy in the Post-Gazette.

Please note that as far as I know, the Democratic Party is not sending poll watchers to, say, Sewickley Heights, Mount Lebanon or Fox Chapel to challenge voters to prove that they're eligible to cast ballots. But if they do, and you hear about it, please feel free to let me know.

I mention that strictly in the name of being fair and balanced. God bless America!

...

Election turnout at North Bittyburg Ward 3, Precinct 1, where I vote, wasn't particularly heavy --- I was voter number 40, as of 7:45 a.m. --- but business was expected to be brisk across the region, according to Pat Cloonan in The Daily News:

Four out of every five registered voters are anticipated at polls as the Mon-Yough region joins the rest of the nation in the 2004 general election. The biggest contests to be considered between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. tomorrow are, of course, the presidential contest and Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race that could help decide which party controls that segment of Congress.

But three other statewide races are on tomorrow's ballot, not to mention a wide range of contests for U.S. House and both houses of Pennsylvania's General Assembly. There are seven local contests on ballots in Mon-Yough communities.

Four out of five --- 80 percent --- seems unusually high to me, but that's what Mark Wolosik, manager of the Allegheny County elections division, has predicted, and he's been pretty close in years past. According to Jeff Cohan in the P-G, that would be the highest turnout since 1984, when 85 percent of registered voters went to the polls; and since then, "motor-voter" laws have swelled the ranks of eligible voters.

...

Speaking of voting, I am following the lead of Gov. "Fast Eddie" Rendell and extending the deadline for you to vote for your favorite Mon-Yough area attractions and recreations until Nov. 8. The submittor of the best attraction or recreation will receive their choice of any item from the Tube City Online store. Email jt3y at dementia dot o-r-g or leave your information in the comments section of the Almanac.

...

Finally this morning, "Wyke's" editorial cartoon in the University of Pittsburgh's student newspaper, The Pitt News, sums up my feelings nicely:





(Standard disclaimer: I do not speak on behalf of Pitt, blah blah blah.)