Granted, there is a ton of work left to do. There is more than enough room for 51 different sets of rules and regulations about overseas absentee voting within UOCAVA, and some states try to do everything they can to get around it altogether. For example:

Alabama was refusing to accept FWABs, on the grounds that its state laws superseded federal law, and UOCAVA magically didn’t apply to them. Last time I checked, oh, I’d say around the time of Brown v. Board, federal law always trumps state law. Alabama, determined to be difficult, did not give in until we got the Department of Justice involved. I’m sure Alabama’s Republican Attorney General was thrilled to get that call.

All of a sudden, Utah decides it wasn’t going to count ballots from voters living overseas permanently. A woman from Utah called us to say that she had spoken with her county clerk, who told her that she had to sign the Residency Oath on the back of her ballot for it to count. She’s been living in Canada her whole adult life, and obviously doesn’t live at her voting residence. The clerk said if she signed the oath, she would be perjuring herself and her vote wouldn’t count. But if she didn’t sign the oath, her vote also wouldn’t count. The solution after we went to bat for her? Sign the oath – but she had to tell the clerk there was a chance she would come back to the U.S. and live at that address. Which is completely bogus, she’s married to a Canadian, and never plans to come back here permanently.

Cole County in Missouri, according to an e-mail I got from a voter, will not accept all FWABs. When Lindsey called to investigate, she spoke to the head clerk, who told her he’s never heard of UOCAVA, but if she faxes it to him, he might get around to reading it before Christmas. Livid, she tried calling the Missouri Secretary of State, only to be told that they only accept FWABs from voters in “remote locations.”

Federal law requires states to accept a FWAB from any overseas voter who applies for a ballot on time, doesn’t get it, and mails their FWAB from outside the country. It doesn’t matter if they’re trekking across the Australian outback and have no access to their mail, or if they’ve lived in the same apartment in Paris for 30 years and get their mail (well, sans state ballot) every day.

To clarify Missouri’s interpretation, though, she asks, “So you’ll count a FWAB from a voter in Zambia, but you won’t count a FWAB from a voter in London, who never got their ballot because their clerk forgot to put enough international postage on it?” What’s the response from the woman she’s talking to? “Where is Zambia?”

Eventually, it becomes clear that Missouri thinks they’ve found a loophole in UOCAVA that exempts them from the requirement of accepting all FWABs. We stick out team of Voter Protection lawyers on the case, who quickly figure out the statute in Missouri state law they’re citing as allowing them to use discretion when accepting FWABs only applies to state and local elections. So they have to count all FWAB votes for federal offices, no matter where the voter is. Sorry, Missouri. Better luck disenfranchising voters next time.

Virginia has issue with some overseas ballots Well…duh.

I realized while writing this post that I need to start with a glossary:

FWAB: Federal Write In Absentee Ballot. The FWAB is essentially an emergency ballot. It’s used when overseas voters do not receive their official state absentee ballots in time to get their ballots returned to the States. More information about the FWAB is available on our Voting Action Center at “What is the FWAB?” (Written by yours truly, after getting so many questions about the FWAB I thought my inbox would explode)

FPCA: The Federal Post Card Application. It’s a special form overseas voters can use to register to vote and request their ballot, all in one shot.

The CNN article above outlines just one of the problems overseas absentee voters face in Virginia. In most, if not all states, if you haven’t requested an official state absentee ballot, you can’t send in the FWAB – it won’t count. In Virginia, though, if you haven’t sent in your FPCA to request your ballot, you can also use the FWAB as an application to request your absentee ballot. However, if you’re using your FWAB as your ballot and as your application for an absentee ballot, your witness needs to provide their address. But does either the FWAB itself or the instructions say that Virginia requires the witness’s address?

Of course not. (Thankfully, Demcorats Abroad is on the ball. Just check out Virginia in “State Specific Updates.”)

But oh, it gets better. The Fairfax County Registrar is not counting ballots that arrive without the witness’s address. The Arlington County Registrar hasn’t received any ballots that are missing the address, but if she did, she would count them. 

Is that not the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Well, okay, Texas still takes the cake for me, but this is close.

Virginia, by the way, is also the only state that explicitly disenfranchises U.S. citizens born abroad to parents from Virginia. Right in the VA state constitution, it says if you’ve never lived in Virginia, you can’t vote there. So children born overseas, who have never lived in the U.S. (and therefore obviously never lived in Virginia), but who are American citizens, mind you – can’t vote if their parents are from VA. And of course, no other state will take them, why would they? Right to vote? Bah humbug!

Remember when I was in charge of the generic DA website e-mail address, so I got everything submitted from the Contact Us page, as well as all the responses from every mass mailing we send out? Which roughly translates to hundreds of e-mails a day that I have to either answer, forward, or delete? In addition to everything else I have to do?

Oh wait. That’s been my life since Denver.

So I apologize for dropping off the face of the blog-planet. But with a little less than three weeks to the election, I’ve decided to start blogging again. Think of it as a New Year’s resolution.

I just have a short narrative I’d like to share with you today.

10/15/08: 5:30pm, EDT
Democrats Abroad International sends out a State Specific Update for voters from Texas that says:

“In years past your county registrar sent out black markers
to complete your absentee ballot – this year they did not send
out the markers. Please use a black ink pen when filling in
your absentee ballot or the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot.”

10/16/08 1:03am, EDT
I get a reply from Texas that says:

“Hello,
Now you’ve got me worried. My son and I used a No 2
PENCIL to darken as instructed in the ballot. Now, you’re
saying I should have used a black marker. That’s a world
of difference!!”

10/15/08: 2:30am, EDT
“Thank you for your message, which is important for
making sure our votes are counted. I actually did notice
this when I was filling out my Absentee Ballot and I
contacted the Texas Elections office for clarification.
They instructed me to use black or blue pen.”

10/15/08: 2:41am, EDT
“Following your email to Texas voters I am concerned.
I sent my absentee ballot back over a week ago. I know
I used a pen but don’t know if it was blue or black. I
precisely remember there was no indication of which
color ink to use.”

10/15/08: 5:16am, EDT
“I am a bit confused. My absentee ballot from Midland,
TX (11th district) came with instructions to use no. 2
pencil to fill in the elliptical choice markers.”

10/16/08: 10:32am, EDT
I call Joe, one of the two voter issues experts, and who is in charge of drafting and sending the Voter Alerts. He wants no part of this investigation. Like all of us, he is swamped. I agree to call the Texas Secretary of State’s office to find out exactly how to mark a Texas ballot.

All of this culminates at:

10/16/08: 11:39am, EDT

When I speak to a perfectly pleasant woman who answers the phone, but refuses to put me in touch with the overseas voting specialist. So I ask her about the blue ink/black ink/pencil issue. She proceeds to tell me that Texas used to send out little golf pencils with their ballots, but due to budget issues, did not send them out this year. We go round and round for a little bit because I’m confused about the ballots that had instructions for ink as opposed to instructions about pencils, but eventually she tells me that all voters can use blue ink, black ink, or…”Pencils without erasers”

Of course, I was sunk. I actually laughed in her face for a good two minutes. Thankfully, she had a sense of humor – I mean, she probably thought I was a few fries short of a happy meal, but she didn’t automatically hang up on me when I couldn’t even talk because I was laughing so hard.

Finally, I managed to choke out, “How – on earth – do the clerks counting the ballots know whether the pencil I used to fill in my ballot had an eraser or not?” And then promptly dissolved into gales of laughter again. She started laughing too – but I think it was more to be polite than anything else, because she said (and this is a direct quote): “Well, if people used pencils with erasers, their votes could just be erased. So they have to use pencils that don’t have erasers.”

. . .

I literally had to pinch myself to be able to stop laughing enough to say “Okay, thanks for your help,” and put down the phone.

I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

I’m just waiting for the next e-mail I get that says “I filled in my ballot with a pencil that had a completely rubbed down eraser. Is that considered a pencil without an eraser? Will my vote be counted?? What about if I broke my pencil in half, and used the half without an eraser? Do you think that’s okay? Should I send them the pencil along with my ballot, so they know it didn’t have an eraser?”