Off the Map

Absentee General election Ballot

There's been lots of press recently criticizing the absentee ballot system and seeing as I'm living abroad I'd like to share my experiences on the matter.

I am happy to report that Boulder County has things in order, as I received my ballot in the mail on Friday. Unfortunately, several other students out here have not yet received their's from their respective counties. I would hazard a guess that 80% of the Study Abroad students here are registered to vote, as the kind of individual who would be curious enough to live abroad for a year in a new culture is the same type who cares enough about the impact of their own elections (at home and abroad) to go thru the red tape to vote.

That said, many of the students have expressed frustration with all the paperwork necessary to receive the absentee ballot - which is clearly a barrier to increased voter participation. I do know of one other Boulder resident who has not received any ballot, and after comparing notes it appears he stumbled across an inaccurate/dated method of registration, and as a result of this paperwork disparity he will be unable to vote.

The ballot itself is clear in directions regarding its completion. The descriptions of Referendums, on the other hand, are way out of line. Many of the summaries explain a Ref. in relation to other Ref's by their numbers and titles - instead of describing a Ref by its intended function. While that's not such a large problem for citizens living amidst coverage of the issues, for those of us abroad its hard to decipher online exactly what's going on, especially as we need to send in our votes in the next couple days in order for them to be counted on time. Most newspaper analysis have not yet been published (and won't be for some weeks) on the issues we have to vote on today.

posted by Jason @ 4:05 pm