Temple Kids Get Valuable Civic Lesson

You voted a few weeks back, no? I can see you now: All bright, chipper, cheery-eyed, if such a term exists. You have your “I Voted for Change” sticker on and you’ve put your Obama hat back on after you left the building, now that Pennsylvania election officials have ruled wearing a shirt of a candidate you like to the polls is highly illegal. (The best is that the argument for this is, “Think of what COULD happen!” What follows is some ridiculous hypothetical situation that would never in a million years happen.)

Anyway, voting. Yes, some Temple kids voted for Obama (wild guess) on Nov. 4, and — whoops! — now they’re realizing their votes won’t count. Only this time it’s not just an existential question about democracy, as they cast provisional ballots and nobody’s going to count all of them. Obviously.

Don’t feel too bad for Kristina Jones, though. She got to vote twice!

Jones filled out four voter registration applications in both Pennsylvania and her home state of New York, but she never received a voter registration card. She registered for the first time in Pennsylvania more than a year ago but “got nothing back,” she said.

After applying for a second time, she said her application was returned through the mail with the word “rejected” stamped on it in red ink. She then cast an absentee ballot in New York.

As it grew closer to Nov. 4, Jones said she feared an absentee ballot might not be counted. She registered once again in Pennsylvania, just in time for her application to be processed before Election Day.

Jones was told she would be on the polling place’s list of supplemental voters, but once she arrived, her name was not found. Though she filled out a provisional ballot, she has some doubts about whether it was counted.

Yeah. We God-fearing Americans have the right to vote in as many states as we want, as many times as we want, for whatever candidate we want! (Because it doesn’t matter. You see how hating politics can quickly lead to “plans for massive electoral fraud?” I bet this is how Nixon got started.)

Students cast doubt over their provisional ballots [Temple News]
Photo by Post406 used under a Creative Commons license