A Religious California Voter Loses Her Right ©

For three decades, she has voted religiously in every California election. No ballot was too large or too small. All were scrutinized carefully. When she felt as though she did not have enough information to make a well-informed judgment, she turned to those who did. She had been an activist from the start and knew many that were deeply connected. She traveled in circles where people read books and wrote articles on affairs of state; they made political moves their lives. She always had.

This voter was willing to work as a volunteer. She offered to assist in telephone banks; she went from neighborhood to neighborhood collecting signatures for petitions. The woman stuffed envelopes, posted signs, walked precincts, and ultimately was asked to work as a Campaign Coordinator. She was not looking for the position, though others were. Her diligence and dedication to the cause promoted a candidate to ask if she would work for him.

Whenever this constituent moved, she immediately changed her voter registration, often before she ordered her utilities. Voting in every election was and is her highest priority.

This elector first voted at the age of seventeen. In the state of Wisconsin, if a person was going to be eighteen at the time of the general election and was seventeen during the primaries, they were granted the right to vote.

She hitchhiked in a pouring rain to get to that first poll and in a blizzard to cast her ballot in the Presidential election of 1972. It just so happened that she was among the first eighteen year olds to vote; she could not miss that. In Wisconsin, she skipped one school board election. There was only one candidate and she did not know the person well. However, guilt ate her up. She never failed to participate again.

This citizen moved to California in 1977 and voted as a Californian ever since. Now the time has come and her heart is heavy.

She willingly and wanted to move to Florida in November 2005. She began planning in June of that year. While this resident actively questioned the wisdom of her decision, she knew that unless she did it, she would never know if the choice was correct. As a long time inhabitant of California she was torn. Life was good, stable, and comfortable. She was at home. Still she needed to go.

The Irvine city dweller sold the home she loved and had created. She physically separated herself from friends and family and flew to Florida. Days after landing in Palm Beach County she went to get her drivers license and change her voter registration. That done she knew she could no longer support Barbara Boxer with the vigor of a voting constituent. Arnold would not be burdened by her votes in opposition. It was real; she would not vote in California anytime soon, if ever again.

Yet, she also understood that, until she cast a ballot in Boca, it would feel as if nothing had changed. Today, that reality was altered. A card arrived in the mail. The return address looked so familiar, because it was. It was from the Registrar of Voters office in Santa Ana, California. It was addressed to me at my correct [Florida] address. The Registrar wanted me to make it official, to give up my right to religiously vote in California elections. They want me to confirm that this move is not temporary and that I am now a Florida resident.

My heart is sinking, must I sign away my post. I want to turn Florida Blue, even Blue-Green; yet, voting in California is my religion or was. Now I must convert.