Love to be voting back in Pennsylvania — much better than the Midwest quagmires

Pennsylvania has a first-class operation

One of my first tasks upon returning to Pennsylvania earlier this year was to ensure that I renewed my voting rights. I was amazed at how easy the process way and how effective it is, compared to the debacles that I had in my experience in the Midwest.

First, since I was still in Cambria County, though at a new address, all I had to do was fill out a county registration form online from the election office. I immediately received email confirmation from the state that the form was received.

Within two weeks, I was again a registered voter in Pennsylvania. I did not have to prove that I was not an illegal immigrant or prove that I lived at my new address.

Then, making things even better, I applied for an absentee ballot. Again, a simple process. I received it in plenty of time, filled it out and mailed it in, and within two days, I received an email that my voted had been counted.

The Midwest

The most bizarre experience in the midwest occurred in Minnesota in 2018. The experience was so terrible that because I was splitting time between Minnesota and Wisconsin, I changed my permanent address to Wisconsin. Overall, that was not bad, except for one concern.

Here was the scary part of voting In Minnesota. In 2018, there were some important elections. The general election in that year was important for me because I was my voting for Senator Amy Klobuchar for the US Senate.

I secured an absentee ballot, and that worked well. However, in order to ensure that I had the ballot to the election office on time, I hand-delivered it to the post office. I mailed it one week — seven days — before the election, so I figured that i was in good shape.

Wrong. .

A week later, I received a notice that my ballot did not count because it did not arrive on time.

What? The distance from the post office to the election office is eight miles, and it could not arrive there within a week?

I complained. The election office blamed the Post Office, who said that it was mailed on time — I had handed it to the clerk directly. That was frustrating. Catch-22

Wisconsin

Consequently, I changed my registration to Wisconsin. That was somewhat better, but not really great. First, I had to secure an ID card since I did not have a Wisconsin driver’s license. I went to register at the local election office, and the woman there said that I could use my Pennsylvania driver’s license as an ID, though it had expired.

However, when I went in to vote in the presidential election of 2020, I was told by another person that my Pa. ID would not work, that I had to get a Wisconsin ID. This was one day before the presidential election, and I told her that when I had registered, the woman told me that the Pa. ID would work.

Wrong again.

So, I had to rush to get an ID card so that I could vote the next day — and it meant that I had to stand in line for quite a while — which was not the case the day before when I tried to vote.

However, I was ultimately able to vote that day, but it was not easy.

So, I decided to vote by absentee ballot in future elections, but the process was not as easy as it is in Pa. The one aspect that bothered me was that I had to have someone watch me fill out the ballot and then attest to the fact that, first, I lived at this address; and second, that I was not an illegal immigrant.

The good part of my move to Wisconsin is that as a Democrat, I watched as we elected a Democratic governor and attorney general while concomitantly taking over the Supreme Court. So, I was pleased with that.

Those moves made me feel very good as a voter since the previous governor had destroyed the schools system in Wisconsin — by eliminating the union jobs. Again, Scott Walker was a college dropout while the current governor is one who was previously the secretary of education.

So, thanks Pennsylvania. I love how easy this process was. However, in truth, the only competitive offices were for state leaders — and I really did not know anyone in those. However, I was able to vote for governor, lieutenant governor, and congressman, as well as state legislator.

Not crazy about Frank Burns, but we need his vote to maintain control of the House.