Voter Registration

I just filled out the Advance/Absentee Ballot form for my particular State. I am registered to vote in one county but going to school in another. However, I want to have a say in the politics of what I consider my home, and I would really like to replace one of the incumbent congressmen with one that I actually agree with.

This was one of the most complicated experiences of my life. I am no moron, but this form had me stumped. It had only two places that indicated what information it wanted, the rest I had to deduce from words that even I, an English Major, stumbled over.

It was this form and these words that made it clear to me why, statistically speaking, poor and uneducated people have lower voter turnout rates. Things only got worse as I tried to find out how to mail the form in. None of this, of course, would have been possible without the internet. If I did not have an internet connection here in the dorm I have no idea how I would have even found this form. Clearly if you could not afford an internet connection your chances of voting are even slimmer.

This system makes it quite difficult for a certain demographic to vote. Does it come as any surprise that the demographic excluded by this ridiculously complicated system of voting is typically the most under represented?

Our voter registration system needs to change, all people need to have easy access to the right to vote.

And for clarification, I am in no way referring to a particular race, but a level of income and education. People with a college or less education would have a difficult time even understanding these forms, and people of low income probably have more important things to do with their time then hunting these forms down on the internet, if they even have money to spare on the internet.

Appalling.

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