Abe supposedly registered to vote through the Motor Voter Law when he received his license earlier this year (after his 18th birthday). But this being the state with the most messed up Registry of Motor Vehicles AND living in a city that seems to make up its own rules as they go along....
Let's just say that when Mom went to check that Abe was on the voter rolls, he wasn't.
So Mom gets the voter registration form
| Registering to Vote | You must be registered in order to vote.
Qualifications:
You must be registered to vote 20 days prior to an election in order to vote in that election. Download the Voter Registration Form from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts here You can register to vote either in person at the Election Commission Office, Room 106, Newton City Hall, or by mail. Mail-in voter registration forms are available at the Newton Free Library and at all branch libraries. |
and then the absentee ballot request form.
| Absentee Ballots |
Absentee ballots must be requested in writing and require an original signature. E-mail requests or faxes are not acceptable. For further information regarding absentee ballots click here Absentee ballots can be voted over-the-counter at the Election Commission, Room 106 of City Hall, 1000 Commonwealth Avenue, during regular office hours. Absentee ballots can also be obtained, and voted, through the mail: to request an absentee ballot, send a written request to the Election Commission. Please include in your request your Newton address, the address of where you would like the ballot sent, and the election(s) for which you require absentee ballots. Requests for absentee ballots may be made up until noon of the day before the election. (However, as a practical matter, if you want the ballot sent outside of Newton, you may want to request the ballot further in advance, so as to allow time for delivery.) It is possible to have a standing order so that absentee ballots for all the elections that you are eligible to vote in are sent are sent to you for up to one year. |
Hmmmm. Do you see a pattern here? But Abe was interested in voting (once Mom brought up the issue) and finally he was home and the absentee ballot was also there. But Abe didn't know much about any of the multitudes of races to be voted on. (And frankly neither did Ora.)
But Mom had saved pages from the local newspaper where the candidates had written position statements and gave them to Abe to read. For instance:
Newton TAB School Committee endorsements: Our choice for our schools in 2010
Like a great baseball team, a great School Committee needs a mixture of players with different skills and abilities. Fortunately for Newton, the 2009 lineup of candidates is the strongest we’ve seen in years.
On Nov. 3, voters across the city will have the chance to choose from a roster of veterans and rookies as well as a business and finance expert, a structural engineer and a software executive — and in choosing our endorsements we have done just that: selected a mix of skills designed to serve the challenges we now face.
The TAB commends all the candidates for running this year and hopes those not elected next month find other ways to serve our school community. The selection was not easy, but here are our endorsements for your 2010-2012 Newton School Committee:
And read them, he did. And then he voted. And we mailed in the ballot.
I'm so proud!!!
















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