Millions of voters across the United States headed to the polls on Tuesday. Not nearly that many will have their vote counted.
On an election day when even the most famous candidate had to confront (minor) voter ID concerns, in a year when even the highest court in the nation is disenfranchising (minority) voters in the biggest state with the lowest turnout – well, it comes down to you.
If your voice isn’t being heard, it should be. The only voter ID, as Stephen Colbert said today, should be you. If new restrictions are preventing you from voting, we want to tell those stories to the world.
Follow along with the most egregious voter horror stories we’ve collected from past and present elections here, and share your election day frustrations in the form below. We’ll be updating this post with submissions from you and across social media throughout Tuesday.
Long line? Upset voter in your neighborhood? Closed polls in your state? Tweet (@GuardianUS) and Instagram (@Guardian) your stories and pictures at us – and make sure to use the hashtag #TurnedAway.
In Ohio: vanishing from the voter rolls
“My father, who has voted in every election as long as he can remember, tells me his name wasn’t on the rolls this morning,” MSNBC producer Jamil Smith tweeted this morning. “He lives in Ohio.” After the Republican-backed legislature there (with help from the US supreme court) successfully blocked a same-day registration push for early voting, only to have a federal judge restore a last-minute Souls to the Polls drive, governor John Kasich is expected to roll to reelection in the ultimate swing state – already notorious for its voting restrictions.
My dad has lived at the same Cleveland address for 35+ years. Registered, Had his ID. At the correct polling place. Did nothing wrong.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) November 4, 2014
Smith’s father found his name on the rolls at the local board of elections but “was really privileged today,” Smith tweeted. “[H]e’s able-bodied enough to drive, then walk, to the Board of Elections. So many other voters can’t do that.”
Smith told the Guardian of his dad: “He’s optimistic that he’ll be able to vote, so it should all work out.”
Not everyone in Ohio is quite so positive today. –Matt Sullivan
In Georgia: ‘missing’ voters and not-so-free parking
Double voters dubbed “Jim Crow all over again”. A single judge eliminating 40,000 voters from the rolls in a move that could “wreak havoc”. In a state where a tight Senate race could lead to one of Tuesday’s two runoffs that could decide the fate of a nation, this is what havoc looks like:
- Voters at the polling centre on Georgia Tech’s campus are reportedly being asked to pay for parking ... despite signs for free parking. One woman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that officials were allowing voters out of the lot for free after showing their I VOTED stickers, but voters had to pay up front to go vote. As a result, wait times upwards of 40 minutes were common.
- In Atlanta, where nearly 50,000 voter registration cards remain “missing”, voters are showing up to the polls only to find out that their registration was never processed in the first place. Although Karl Ragland and his wife submitted a change of address request after moving to Atlantic earlier this year, ThinkProgress reports that the couple was informed to go vote at a polling place 35 miles away.
–Katherine Krueger
In Texas: welcome to disenfranchisement central
Samantha Adams moved to San Antonio two weeks ago – which is two weeks too late for the registration deadline in a state that has done more than perhaps any other to restrict voting requirements in the midterms homestretch. Adams tweets that at the polls on Tuesday morning, officials offered her a provisional ballot but told her they wouldn’t actually be counting her vote. Why the provisional ballot? “Some people like 2 b part of the process,” she reports being told
I cannot shake the feeling that went through me when a TX election official said to me, "You're vote won't count." #LetMeVote
— Samantha Adams (@MsSamAdams) November 4, 2014
Sound familiar? Click here to read the story of a lifelong North Carolina resident with similar frustrations over disenfranchisement, and share your election day story in the form below. –Lilah Raptopoulos
More Texas (by way of China): ‘They hung up on me’
I am currently living abroad and requested an absentee ballot. I’m registered using my parents’ residence back in San Antonio. After an online application, I receive news that my request was denied. I called asking why, and insisted that it was my right in a democracy to vote. I also mentioned China. That was when the conversation took a turn for the worse.
I was fed the line that I live abroad and that my address cannot be valid – regardless of the fact that I was still getting official mail, paying taxes and doing other bureaucratic stuff at that address. I confronted officials on the telephone, insisting that if they were denying my absentee ballot due to my political affiliation – or the fact that I’m living in a country that is not friendly to US foreign policy ...
The Texas voting official hesitated – and then hung up on me in China. How’s that for so-called democracy? –Christine Mahon, China
Virginia: voting-machine glitch ... or distraction?
One GOP Congressman in Virginia claims his office has fielded reports of voting machines malfunctioning in 19 precincts across the state. Rep Scott Rigell, who’s running for re-election against Democrat Suzanne Patrick said in a press conference Tuesday morning that glitchy machines were diverting votes intended for him to Patrick.
Virginia Beach voter registrar Donna Patterson hadn’t confirmed the number of precincts reporting issues, but she told the Virginian-Pilot that calls from voters have been minimal:
[T]o be honest with you, we’ve had more calls from Rigell’s office than from voters.
Follow more updates on this story in our Guardian US election day live blog. Having trouble voting? Fill out the form below and use the hashtag #TurnedAway on Twitter and Instagram. –K.K.
Texas, continued: relocation frustration
In November 2013, as a new resident of my ‘uptown’ neighborhood, I went to our nearest polling place on election day and presented my driver’s license and separate voter registration card, with my name and address matching on both – no small feat in San Antonio, considering the rigmarole of obtaining and updating a license or other photo ID card. My ID was acceptable, but I was at the ‘wrong’ polling place. I had been assigned by the county to another one based on my street address – but not my proximity to that address.
I had to walk nearly a mile from my home to another school to cast a vote. I can only imagine what a chore this could have been for my elderly or less mobile neighbors.
Finally, I inquired about an I VOTED sticker. I felt I had truly earned one this year. No luck – no stickers had been received by our polling place this election. Seriously?
San Antonio is the seventh most populous city in the US, and voter turnout is understood to be abysmal; approximately 12% of registered voters could cast a vote in the March election, and my area is rumored to have a turnout rate below 5% on average. No wonder why. –Mark Tirpak, San Antonio
New York: deliberate de-registration
I was a duly-registered Chicago voter ready to cast a vote for Jesse Jackson in the spring 1984 primary. When I got to the polling place, I was told I was not on the list of registered voters. My registration card meant nothing. There was a downtown office to go for an appeal, but on a Tuesday, who has time for that? I felt powerless.
I found out afterwards that an anti-machine group had gone through my neighborhood to check that voters names were consistent with the names of property owners and/or renters next to buzzers at the front doors of apartment buildings. I rented an attic room from a family, so my name was only on the voter list. There was an obvious class bias at work: apparently no one considered the possibility of lodgers, sublets or roommates not on leases.
I was already suspicious of the system, but having even my tiny voice silenced taught me a lesson I’ll never forget: poor people don’t count in American politics. I’m not planning to vote in the midterm elections. There’s no one who even claims to represent me. ‘Middle class’ this and ‘middle class’ that ... I’m poor. —Barutan Seijin, New York
Illinois: a strange thing happened on the way to the ballot
While I am happy to say I was able to vote today, I witnessed multiple people turned away at the polls this morning for being at the wrong precinct. Apparently their precinct – No2 here in Chicago – was unexpectedly closed.
Polls opened at 6am; I arrived at 6:10. Three people were waiting to vote, and the volunteers were having trouble with the machines used to verify if voters are registered and at the correct precinct. While we were waiting for the machines to get up and running, at least two people walked in to vote, realized that they didn’t have time to wait and walked back out the door.
Eventually, the volunteers stopped waiting for the machines and consulted paper records. Fortunately, this worked out for me. However, this is when the two men in front of me were informed that they were at the wrong precinct. They replied that their precinct was closed. (They didn’t say whether they’d been referred to this precinct by elections officials.) The two men asked where they should go, and one of the volunteers advised that she couldn’t find this information without the machines, which were not working. The two men left. Another man who did not speak English walked in with his voter registration card (also from the closed precinct), and he was also turned away.
Throughout this, the volunteers at my precinct mentioned a few times that our polling location would be used for two precincts, though there was some confusion around this point. I never heard them say the number of the precinct our location was also hosting, and I heard them debating whether the books they were using to manually verify voter registration contained only precinct No7 (my precinct) or both No7 and the mystery precinct.
Another strange thing happened while I was filling out my ballot. A woman walked in to vote and was shocked to find that she could only be issued a provisional ballot. She became very upset, and stated that she’s lived in the same house in the same neighborhood for the past 10 years and that she’s always voted at this polling location. She would not accept the provisional ballot – with good reason – and demanded to know why she could only be issued a provisional ballot. By the time I left, her situation was still unresolved, and a volunteer was calling the Board of Elections on her behalf.
It was really unsettling to witness these things. Not everybody has the time to bounce from polling location to polling location, and not everybody has the language skills to advocate for themselves in situations like these. And as unfortunate as it was for that specific woman to randomly receive a provisional ballot, she was very empowered and was forcefully advocating for her own right to vote. Not everybody has the time or ability to do that, and their votes should matter, too. We can – and should – do better than this. –Nicole Lopez, Chicago
In DC: endless bureaucracy
When I attempted to vote in 2012 in Maryland, I discovered that the Department of Motor Vehicles had not properly processed my ‘motor voter’ registration the year before. Same day registration was not permitted, so I couldn’t vote.
In 2010, I went to vote in DC, but I was turned away for getting in line too late. One of the reasons for my late arrival was because the wait times earlier had been far too long. I was working as a school teacher in another jurisdiction at the time, so I couldn’t just miss my classes to wait in line during the business day. —Christina Berry, Washington, DC
