The first time I ever voted was Tuesday, November 8, 1960. I had just gotten out of the Navy and beginning my new life as a civilian. I remember being very excited at the polls and wanting to get it right. I am a staunch Republican, and I voted for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who I though was the better candidate at that time. Now, sixty years later, I found myself at the polls, still excited, standing in front of the registrar giving her my name and address. She asked me if I had the ballot that I was sent in the mail and I replied, “No, I neither requested it, nor wanted it, because I vote at the polls, as I always have for the last 60 years. “Did you bring it with you?”, she asked. “No, I threw it in the garbage, full well expecting to vote at the polls like I have for the last 60 years.” I reiterated. “Then you will have to see that man over there and fill out a request for a ‘Provisional Ballot‘ “, she said. “No,” I said, my voice raising a decibel and an octave, “I just want a ballot to vote here at the polls like I have for the last 60 years.” I noticed a stiffening tension in the her and her other cohorts, as I held out my hand for my ballot. “We are sorry sir, but you must see that man over there for a provisional ballot.” I begrudgingly did what I was told and filled out the paper, and 20 minutes later voted ‘Provisionally‘, and walked out, feeling I had been raped.
On December 7, (A date that will live in infamy) 2020 , I received a buff colored voter notification card in the mail, from the Shasta County Clerk, saying that I had been registered to vote as of November 03, 2020, and it was valid for elections on or after 11/18/2020. “Hmmmmm”, I thought, as I picked up the phone to call the registrars office. A nice young gentlemen answered the phone and I explained my story to him and asked him if my provisional vote had counted on November 3, 2020. He put me on hold. When he returned, he told me that there was a note in my voting file (I had no idea it existed), that I had been registered to vote as of 11/18/2020, but that was all. No note that I had voted on 11/3/2020, like I have for the last 60 years at the polls.
That same day I wrote a letter to the esteemed Shasta County Clerk, asking for a written accounting of my vote, and as of today December 31, 2020 I have no answer.
I am going to start the New Year by going to the Clerks Office, to get my explanation. After 60 years of voting and good citizenship (when I was in country) I think I deserve an answer, don’t you?.
