Salt Lake County (the place where I a registered as an absentee voter) has finally finished counting all its provisional and absentee ballots. link
Prior to adding in these votes, McCain was leading Obama by 1900 votes. After all the provisional and absentee ballots were added, Obama won the county by 296 votes. One of those votes was mine. One was my husbands. So it feels like we actually made a difference.
Of course none of this changes the outcome of the election or even any of Utah's electoral votes but this may be as close as I ever come to actually seeing my individual vote count.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
A parcel tax in my town passed about 10 years ago by one vote.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Good for you, The Rabbit! It is kind of cool that we can see results by county now. It goes a long way to dispelling the red state/blue state thing.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I didn't realize it would allow you to still vote in your previous county after you moved to another country like that.
How does absentee balloting work? Does that mean you are there as an ex-pat and are planning to come home at some time? Or just voting as a U.S. citizen in another country?
(edit - I guess that all makes sense when I think about it. Of course any U.S. citizen can vote from anywhere. I will have to ask my younger sister if she voted from her home in Belgium)
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Yes, I am still a citizen of the US. We do plan to return at some point but that doesn't really make a difference. As long as we are citizens of the US, we are allowed to participate in US elections.
Since I was registered to vote in Salt Lake County where I was a resident during the last election cycle, I simply went to the Utah web page, filled out the form for absentee ballots for persons living oversees and then faxed (and mailed) it to the appropriate election office. I received a ballot by e-mail which I printed, filled out signed, scanned and returned by e-mail. I could also have sent in the ballot by regular mail but surface mail here is unreliable. I had to sign a form releasing my right to anonymity in order to submit the ballot by e-mail.