Why voting abroad is awful

So last Friday, October 17th, after waiting and checking and bothering our Municipal clerk with emails (who assured me it had been sent last week; lost in the mail...?), and waiting some more for my ballot to come, I was beginning to lose hope that it would arrive (most of my other classmates here had already received theirs). Coincidentally, I received a Madrid_Warden "US Embassy in Spain" email in the morning before class. These always look like spam emails, but I think we were signed up to learn more about voting abroad, etc. The subject of this email was "Final Reminder to VOTE!" and a section that said "Ballot hasn't arrive yet?" recommended the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (also known as the "FWAB") which we can print and send or fill out at the embassy, as a back-up vote, if the absentee ballot never arrives. Note: if the absentee ballot DOES arrive later, you have to fill that out and send it back ASAP as well, because that's what they are waiting for. I checked the US Embassy website and it closes at 1pm, and I figured getting this ballot filled out before the weekend would be the best way to ensure that SOME sort of vote goes in, so I decided I would have to sacrifice a class to get this vote in.

So the US Embassy is inconveniently located in between some metro stations, but after a little asking around, arriving at the BACK of the embassy and having to walk around it, I finally was able to get there. Luckily, I was not one of the hundreds of people trying to get a passport so by the time I was done filling out my "FWAB", my "number" was called (it's like the DMV, with TONS more people). Granted, no one was at the window with my number on it, but I think they were a bit occupied with a more serious situation. An American woman who had stayed in Madrid for 10 days and was on her way to airport, suitcase in hand, when someone slipped their hand into her purse and robbed her on the metro (and her passport was also one of those things so she was trying to get a new passport before her flight left that same day). Terrible terrible luck. Note to self: even if it is the LAST day in Europe, never forget to guard my stuff with my life.

Finally, I got my vote in, got the consulate to sign as a witness, got everything taken care of, and for free, so I was more or less content. Trying to find the closest metro to get to school was tough because I was a bit misoriented and basically smack dab in between 4 metro stops all around me, but I figured it out and got to class with 10 minutes left (I felt really bad about...but the professor did not seem to upset...). This was my 2 hour adventure on Friday.

But wait, that's not all. Remember; this blog is about the adventures of Jojo. And my life seems to be full of them.

After the second class, I came home to a response from the Madison Municipal Clerk to my very angry email about not yet recieving my ballot (sent two nights prior), and they had conveniently attached my absentee ballot to this email...wish they could have done that before I went through all the hassle to go the embassy. I figured I'd continue to be patient and wait till Monday, especially because if my ballot did come in the mail by Monday, it'd be a lot easier to fill it out and send it back than finding a cyber cafe, paying to use internet/print off the ballot from my email, buy the stamp/envelope, the list goes on.

Well unfortunately, my ballot did not arrive by Monday and since I did "technically" recieve my absentee ballot (via email...does that even count?) and am supposed to send it in if do get it, I need to get it done before it is too late. I went to a cyber cafe Monday night (where I realized that every cyber cafe is run by Bengalis, just like me, although I think most are Bangladeshi), and printed off the pages. With help from my friend from class as a "US Citizen Witness", I filled out the ballot while sitting on a park bench near her house.

Tuesday morning, I realized I had some random envelopes so I didn't have to pay to buy some, so I filled everything out, with my name/address on everything, twice, and taped my envelope shut. I went to the bus station to buy my bus tickets to Barcelona and luckily, right outside the bus station was a "Correos" post office, and I just wanted to make sure my envelope was not overweight and would ACTUALLY get there (hopefully, in time!). When I asked for a regular stamp, the lady weighed my envelope and told me that it was .02 grams over the .2 gram limit, and thus would be about 1euro more. I commenced to open the envelope, tore off half a page which was just blank white, gave it all back to her, and it was perfectly fine (thank God), and I carefully watched her glue it shut and put it in the mail courier.

So after spending 2 euros on printing/stamps, but more importantly, probably about 4 hours of effort, my absentee ballot should be going in, as well as my back-up, Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot. I am hoping that one of these votes will be counted for me and all this effort pays off with a president who will actually try stop the war, boost the economy (make the dollar worth a bit more in Europe?), help me pay off college loans and such, and actually make our lives better, overall.