Becca Jane St Clair

Pennsylvania REAAAAALY doesn’t want you to vote absentee from abroad, let me tell you. Originally, I just though it was Lancaster County being awkward, but no. It’s the whole state.

As an American abroad, my vote gets counted in the last township I physically voted in before I moved. So in 2008 when I first voted from abroad, that was my mom’s address in Lancaster County. Despite the fact that no one in my family lives at that address or in that township, that’s still where my vote goes as it’s my last address on file in PA with DMV.

As a Pennsylvanian abroad, I am restricted to Federal and State elections only. I tend not to bother with the state elections and only vote in Federal elections and I have voted in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 by absentee….OR SO I THOUGHT.

I filled out the forms from Vote From Abroad back in September to request my absentee ballot. A friend of mine in PA said that PA had a delay in preparing the ballots, so I shoudn’t worry….but then my friends who live abroad who are from PA started getting their ballots….but nothing for me.

I contacted Democrats Abroad, who told me ot contact Vote from Abroad, who gave me the contact email for Lancaster County…

Yeah. I was apparently dropped from the roles for NOT VOTING….uhm. But I voted! So there was more back and forth with them where they asked me if I was SURE I voted in 2016 and 2020. Uhm. YES. So then I got told to re-register, except that the form I had filled out said it covered registration as well as an overseas ballot request. In my reply, I said “It really is beginning to sound as though you do not want overseas voters to vote in this election”…and what do you know? I was suddenly registered!

But then….then comes the CRAZY hoops you have to go through as a PA voter to get your online ballot…which still has to be mailed back, but at least I don’t have to wait for anything to arrive in the post here.

Step One….You get an email that contains a PASSWORD for your ballot PDF and instructions on how to access the “encrypted email”
Step Two….You click on the link in the second email that leads you to the encrypted email with PDF attached.
Step Three…You use the password provided in the first email to open the PDF. Only…my PDF is 4 pages long and only contains instructions…no ballot. WHAT THE HELL PA?

Fortunately, they are on the ball with replying to email, so I sent off an email and explained that my PDF contained 4 pages of instructions and a declaration form, but no ballot…..but here’s the HILARIOUS part. They wrote back and PUT MY BALLOT AS A FILE ATTACHMENT WITH NO PASSWORD.

Uhm.

Soooooo loads of emails and instructions and they can just email me the ballot. Nice.

Anyway, I voted.

Posted it on the 16th of October, so it had plenty of time to arrive and I received an email on the 24th stating my ballot has been received.

Now, we cross our fingers.

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