My absentee ballot has arrived, and my vote for Obama shall soon be winging its way back to the US.
They’ve sent it by e-mail this year, which was a surprise, and I have to print everything out and mail it back by regular mail. The envelopes will be tricky, as the usual three are still involved – one for the ballot, a larger security envelope to put that into and a slightly larger one still to mail back, all of them to be run through the printer, so I’ll need to find some proper sizes. But I expect to be mailing my ballot back this month.
Alas! I vote in Texas. That is because my Hawaiian driver’s license expired while I was over here, so when I went to West Texas in the late 1990s to deal with my father’s sudden aneurysm, I obtained a Texas driver’s license based on the family manse and was registered to vote at the same time. That license has expired too, I only have a Thai license and an international permit now, but the voter registration stuck.
But it would not matter if I still voted in Hawaii. Texas is going Romney, whether I vote there or not; Hawaii is going Obama, whether I vote there or not. All I can do is add my vote to the national total, which I’m glad to do.
The voter registrar in my county and I have exchanged many messages over the years, and I have the impression that my elephant-themed stamps are a hit in the office. I just contacted her about my worries regarding the difficulties of printing out the envelopes properly. She’s already answered that as long as I can print out the return envelope that I put my signature on, then that will be fine. However, she’s going to send me the proper envelopes anyway in the mail right away. She’s very good. Mail usually takes only 7-10 days to reach me from the US, so I should have plenty of time. Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can do about the envelopes. I’m guessing this e-mail service will undergo some tweaking in the future.
As for what I would do if I did not have a printer – which I do, a new laser printer we purchased not too long ago, last year maybe – the wife could print out everything at her office or I could just find an Internet shop, which are common in Bangkok.
