"Curing" Ballots for "We the People"

 

Lillian and I pose with ballot "curing" packets.

The most basic right of any citizen of a republic is the right to vote; without the right to vote the government is only "We Some of the People." Thousands of Georgians have done everything they were supposed to do to vote this year, but because some elections worker finds their 2020 signature somehow different from the signature on their submitted ID their ballot is put aside until that voter can resubmit a better approximation of their signature with, again, their ID. Perhaps the voter has had a stroke, like the elderly gentleman whose ballot I helped "cure" in Carterville. Or maybe like the 18 year-old brand new voter who signed his ballot application quickly and sloppily but was more careful with his driver's license signature. 

In other words, to avoid the highly unlikely chance that some criminal will chance a jail term so they can cast one illegal vote, thousands of voters are having their franchise threatened. 

As a volunteer representative of the Democratic Party of Georgia, it has been my privilege yesterday and today to drive all over Bartow and Polk counties to find voters whose legitimacy is being questioned and helping them to "cure" their ballots. Today that brought me to the home of a delightful 85 year lady who lives on a country road in rural Polk County. We had a really nice, properly masked and distanced, visit. She was thrilled to find that I am a Democrat. She is so pleased that we have Joe Biden as our incoming president and she had been pleased to cast a vote for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in order to give our new president a Senate that gives his nominees and legislative proposals a fair hearing. She wants the nastiness to end. We talked about Covid and how much we each missed seeing our grandkids this Christmas. We talked about her husband's service in the Seabees during the Vietnam era. 

She had no idea there was a problem with the absentee ballot she had mailed. 

Since she did not have an e-mail address or a cellphone with a camera she agreed to have me use mine. She signed the affidavit I provided and allowed me to photograph it and her ID and watched while I e-mailed those pictures to her county elections office. I have helped a bunch of folks the last two days but she is the only one to use my cellphone to "cure" a ballot. I know it's silly, but I just got kinda emotional when I received this e-mail after I got home (I have removed her name to protect her privacy.):

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The Absentee Ballot Affidavit for [the lady's name] has been received by our office. The ballot has now been accepted by our office, and no further action is required at this time.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact our office.

Thank you and have a great day,

[Etc.]

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Please, get out and vote! Our nation is at a crossroads. We need to return to normalcy. We need to return to bipartisanship and compromise. Our nation would not be without huge compromises -- some very distasteful to many, but under the circumstances of the day --- necessary to majority approval. With Mitch McConnell in absolute control of what can come before the Senate our Congress is crippled.

The driving, the time commitment, the fact that it should be unnecessary, the many times folks aren't home to answer a knock, the stress of needing to get the procedures exactly right, the stress of keeping Covid-safe, all is tedious and can be aggravating. BUT it has been such a rewarding time to see the appreciation of those who have been assured their sacred vote is being counted.