enfranchisement

[raven]

So, it looks like I won't be voting in the referendum on May 5th.

Mostly this is as a result of my own incompetence, but, still. When the referendum was announced, I decided straight off that I wanted a proxy, not a postal vote. Don't ask me why, it felt more solid to me.

So I looked up online how you arrange for a proxy vote. Send a form to the last place in the UK you were registered, it said, and pre-printed the address on the form for me. I had the form for Oxford City Council, and then realised... am I registered to vote in Oxford? Or am I registered to vote in Sefton? The cards went round in October, said the internet.

I called home. "Did you register me to vote?"

Cue silence. Both my parents remembered the letter coming round, but neither could recall if they'd filled me in as resident and registering. Okay, I said, could you call Sefton Council and ask? I can't, for fairly obvious reasons.

Okay, said my dad. A couple of days later, I asked, in passing, did you call them?

They put me on hold, he said. And then they put me on hold some more. I'll try again later.

A few days I asked him again. He rang off and went to try them yet again, and called back: they put me on hold.

A few days after that it was the day before the deadline to register to vote in the UK. I called home. My dad said, faintly desperately, that he hadn't managed to talk to anyone.

Screw this, I said, I am going to apply for a proxy as though I were registered to vote. As for where: I will nominate my dad in Sefton, and Shim in Oxford. If I'm lucky, I'm registered to vote somewhere. One of them might get a polling card for me, and the other a letter saying "who are you?" - and if they both get polling cards I will not commit electoral fraud and vote twice.

I printed off the forms yesterday, filled them in at 1am, looked for stamps in the drawer I always keep them. There are no stamps in the drawer I usually keep them. So today I went to the little newsagent in Collegetown. We don't have them, they said. Try two doors down. I tried two doors down. They said, we don't have international ones, try up at the Statler. I trekked up there, they said, yes there is a place here that has stamps - but it's just closed. Go downtown.

I went outside and considered going downtown. I might have mentioned earlier I have a head-cold, and can't sleep because all the crap in my head means I can't breathe properly when lying down. I wobbled a bit on my feet and went home. Tomorrow I will go and get stamps if I'm dying. I will.

But. The deadline for a new proxy in the UK is six working days before the election. Six working days before the election is April 26th. Tomorrow is April 21st. USPS suggest allowing a week for transatlantic mail.

I am going to try - but even if it gets there, and it might not get there, I may not be registered anywhere.

I have a degree in political science. Clearly this is no bar to idiocy-based failure to participate. I am very, very annoyed with myself right now.

Comments

[marymac.livejournal.com]

If it helps, I posted my registration three weeks ago, and the Electoral Register office is, oh, three streets from my house, and I've heard nothing back. I suspect that in NI at any rate, the registration deadline is going to have to get awfully bendy.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heee! I wish I were from NI, I do!