Conspiracy

Call me wacky, call me crazy, but I think someone voted absentee using my name. I told the proverbial "you" about going to the polls on election night and being told I'd registered to vote absentee. So I went through the "provisional" vote farse only to get home to find a letter from the election commission stating they didn't have a valid signature on file for me and I had to sign and mail back a form to them in order for my vote to count.

Okay, I assume it was all taken care of and just a typical government agency mired in bureacracy and making mistakes. Now I don't know. Yesterday someone dropped a note off at my door saying I was on a list of voters whose votes would be invalidated unless a valid signature was on file with the elections committee. This note was from the State Democratic Party office. The local governor's race is neck and neck and they want to make sure they get all the votes counted. I'd noticed on my Caller ID that I'd received a call from the Republicans the night before. I assumed it was about the same thing.

So I go to the elections commission Web site and enter my provisional ballot number. It tells me my vote was void since I'd voted absentee and my absentee vote had been counted. This morning I called up the elections office and the nice woman there agreed that "this was a problem." She put me on hold and then came back on and said someone would have to call me back.

I just find it too much of a coincidence that after being registered to vote in this state for 24 years and voting at the same polling place for 17 years, my signature would disappear, someone else would register for me to vote absentee and then someone would actually vote absentee in my name. I'm willing to bet they didn't vote Democrat, either.

It's a helpless feeling. You read about identity theft all of the time. But in this case, someone has stolen my right to vote. And I'm not one of those whiners who want to do the election over just because my candidate didn't win. What's at stake here is the very principal we've been taught our country never compromises: we have the right to choose by voting. If you don't vote you don't have the right to bitch. I voted. That vote was invalidated by a system that has broken down or by some ass who wanted his candidate to win regardless of the method.

So are there really any winners in this last election?