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    • Despite the voting options, voting requires persistence
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    Despite the voting options, voting requires persistence

    Online Niel Posted on

    About 100 million eligible voters opted to avoid the polls in 2016. In 2020, that number was closer to 80 million. How many have faced electoral entanglements that forced their hand away from a ballot?

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    My eyes opened recently in the middle of the night, a sense of dread came over me. Something was wrong.

    It was as if my ancestors reached out and tapped me on the shoulder. Hard.

    “Wake up!”

    In those predawn hours, I remembered that my mail-in ballot to vote in Tuesday’s presidential election was halfway across the country. Even worse, I wouldn’t get home until election day to vote in person.

    I’ve been bouncing around the country for both work and pleasure these past few weeks. Nevada. Ohio. New york. Indiana. I’ll be in Washington, DC next.

    As I explained earlier, voting is not a choice for me. I see it as my civic and moral duty. I was taught to always vote because there was a time—not long ago—when blacks were prohibited from doing so or were illegally challenged at the polls.

    Traveling or not, I had to fix this. I jumped into action by first researching the internet about my county’s absentee voting rules. I discovered that I could receive another unique postal ballot. I tried to apply online but kept getting exited from the portal.

    Let’s go old school, I thought and picked up my phone. I called my county clerk to request a new ballot. The clerk asked for my information to verify my identity and said he would mail my provisional ballot to my temporary address. I waited a week. It never arrived.

    I called again, this time spending over an hour explaining my situation. It was October 29, the last day to request a replacement ballot. I was beyond stressed, especially since I was told three times that I had no option to get a new slip in time for it to be postmarked by Tuesday.

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    “You just have to fight for certain things”

    All of this made me wonder what hardships others went through to make sure their vote counted. Because life’s circumstances can certainly derail the best-laid voting plans. Maybe it’s an unexpected trip. A snowbird who forgot to change his address before fleeing the cold. Or maybe it’s a disease.

    Look no further than 82-year-old Lemuel Elzy, a resident of Marietta, Georgia.

    On July 11, Elzy suffered a medical emergency. It was a shock to his family, to his three daughters, who were used to a healthy and vibrant father, one who thrived living alone, drove himself everywhere, and continued to work as an accountant and tax preparer since retired from General Motors in 2008.

    But Elzy had suffered two strokes and had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and kidney failure. His body was starting to shut down. The doctors didn’t think she would make it and began preparing their daughters for the inevitable. He languished in TI for a month before turning a corner.

    For two more months, he was in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation centers, improving and gaining strength. He was going to be fine, but medical professionals said he needed to be moved to an assisted living facility. He could not return to his home of 42 years, where all the bedrooms are upstairs. They chose a facility in Gwinnett County so they could be closer to family.

    Look up and it’s September. As Elzy recovered, his daughters realized he wouldn’t be home to vote, so they asked for a ballot for him.

    When an envelope arrived at Elzy’s home in October from the Cobb County Elections and Registration Office, daughter Dionne Battle took it out. He didn’t open it right away, but when he did, he saw that the absentee ballot request had been rejected because Elzy’s address was written in the wrong place.

    “When I got it, I actually thought it was his report card,” Battle, 56, told me. “I said, ‘Oh, well, I got his ballot. I’m going to keep it in my purse so I don’t lose it and can give it to her to fill out. “

    They broke the news to Elzy. Battle describes a look of devastation and shock on his face. That didn’t last long. It turned into determination: “Oh, I’m voting,” he told his daughters.

    So they decided there was only one solution: take him out of the facility — with his portable oxygen tank in tow — and drive him to the nearest early voting location in Cobb County, about an hour away from the county Gwinnett.

    Elzy voted in person and returned to the building in time for dinner.

    “I kept thinking to myself, ‘Wow, I wonder how many other people have gone through this, especially the elderly,'” Battle told me. “He was horrified, I think insulted that they rejected his ballot because of an address mistake – yet they managed to mail the rejection to his address.”

    “If it had been two weeks before, we wouldn’t have been able to get him to the vote in person because he wasn’t strong enough,” she said. “But we were taught that you have to fight for certain things, so that’s what we. he did.”

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    “We had to find a way to vote”

    Indeed. I had to fight too.

    While on the phone with my office, I asked the employee to check with his supervisor each time he told me I had no more options. Because there had to be another way. Finally, after not taking no for an answer, I was informed there it was a way to vote electronically, that I had to fill out a remote accessible ballot, print it and mail it in, along with a signed oath stating that I have not voted and do not intend to vote vote a ballot from any other jurisdiction for the same election.

    The document also reminded me that voting twice in the same election is a crime.

    Once it was all I wanted or needed. And now my ballot and voter oath are safely in the mail on their way to the county clerk to be counted. I paid for priority shipping for added peace of mind. Upon arrival, it will be cross-checked with my voter registration form to ensure the signatures match.

    Phew. Crisis averted. But it took a lot of time and anxiety to make it happen. Someone less determined or less motivated to vote might have accepted the first “no” and not voted. After all, about 100 million eligible voters opted to avoid the polls in 2016. Four years later, in 2020this number was closer to 80 million. I’m sure the majority chose not to vote, but how many faced electoral shenanigans that forced them away from a ballot?

    “If we hadn’t done what we did, my dad wouldn’t have been able to vote,” Battle told me. “His vote would not have counted in this crucial election. That would have been unacceptable. We had to find a way to vote.”

    Suzette Hackney is a national columnist. Reach her on X: @suzyscribe

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