Why is voting abroad so hard? That’s the question I ask myself daily as I wait for New York State to send me my absentee ballet so I can cast my vote in this controversial election. We live in the age of convenience and instant gratification, so why hasn’t the voting system caught up with that? Instead, I have to mail papers in and fill out forms online and then wait. Then when I request my ballot I am told I have to wait for them to send it to me, which they only do two to three weeks before the election.
So I’m waiting for my ballot so I can vote in the first presidential election that I have been able to. My first voting experience has been beyond frustrating. When, as a nation, we are so encouraged to vote, why do they make it so difficult? Now I wonder if I’ll be able to vote, worrying if my ballot will get here in time for me to send it back. Is my vote so unimportant? Why do they have to wait so long to send it to me? Even though I live in New York, which is a blue state, I want to have my vote in the mix. Whether I vote republican, democrat or even third party, my vote is important.
“Every vote counts”…is that true? If so, why isn’t it easier to vote while I’m not in the United States? It should be a simple process. We should have to register and then notify our state that we will be abroad and then we should be able to vote online on our election day, just like every other American. In this day and age, why do we have such an archaic voting system?
In a world where we have managed to make so much of our lives easier, why haven’t we tackled this part? Even though the majority of Americans do not need to vote abroad, we need to fix this. Right now only a very small percentage of Americans abroad participate in the elections. Voting is a right that we are lucky to have, and it should not be one that we have to struggle to use.