Important: Voting By Mail

The Obama campaign is urging its followers to vote by mail in the coming election. There are two principle reasons for this.

• First, it eliminates the chance that forces unforeseen -- weather, car trouble, illness, whatever -- will prevent you from voting on election day.
• Second, the campaign has put together a truly amazing system for tracking your mailed ballot to insure that it is counted fairly. The Obama campaign wants to prevent a repeat of the troubles in Florida from the 2000 campaign.

How they suggest you do this is not to go through your local county clerk's office, but rather through your closest Obama for President campaign headquarters. At these campaign offices, they will have the correct document available to request a ballot by mail. You can then either leave the filled-out document with the campaign and they will deliver it to your county clerk or you can drop it off yourself. Either way, the campaign will put you into their system. What this does is allow them to then take the following steps.

• 1. They will follow up with your county clerk to make sure that your request for a ballot by mail was received and is in the county system.
• 2. They will follow up with your county clerk at the proper time to make sure that a ballot was mailed to you.
• 3. They will follow up with you to make sure that you received the ballot.
• 4. They will follow up with your county clerk to make sure that your cast ballot was received by the clerk's office and has been recorded in the system.

As I said, the Obama campaign is taking no chances. They feel confident that regardless of where you live, this is the best way for you as a citizen to have your vote fairly counted in the upcoming election.

To find the Obama campaign office nearest to you, visit the official Obama campaign site on the web, click on your state, and then click on "find your local office." This will bring up a map of your state with local office listings. (My "your state" link above takes you to that page.)

If you live in Santa Fe County here in New Mexico, the local Obama for President office is near the Smith's grocery store at:

720 Saint Michaels Drive, Suite 2-N, 87505

I urge you to follow the campaign's recommendations and vote by mail this year, and to do so as early in the process as you feel comfortable.

6 September 2008

Addition: The campaign has similar systems set up for Americans living abroad, including those serving in the military. If you know of anyone in these circumstances, please let them know. Indeed, feel free to pass this information along to anyone. Thank you.

21 September 2008 Addition: In Santa Fe, you can call 505-827-3600 to request an absentee ballot. You can also check your registration status, register to vote and request an absentee ballot on the official Obama campaign site, found here.