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Aug. 13th, 2020 12:45 pmGot sent a vote by mail application back in the tail end of July.
Filled it out the same day and sent it back the next day.
No ballot in my mailbox yet, but my official 'no, you don't have to show up for jury duty' document arrived from the jury commissioner today. I put in my 'but I did my jury time int he last three years' request on July 31st, online, and it was processed August 3rd according to my emails.
I phoned the 800 number for the Massachusetts Secretary of State's office to ask about my ballot application status. They went searching.
"Yeah, you haven't received your ballot yet because it looks like they haven't received your application yet... I'll call their office and call you back if you want."
The fuck, USPS. There's a difference between dragging things out in a mailing environment the size of Boston and dragging things out in a town small enough that I can walk from here to the town hall with a pint of ice cream in a bag and still have reasonably solid ice cream by the time I arrive.
(In fairness it may be the town clerk's office's problem, too. I sent an email to the address listed on the Secretary of State's page for voter inquiries for my town and got this bounce message: "From July 27 to August 10 I will be out of the office. I will have limited access to email. Leave a detailed message and we will return your inquiry." Please note that today is August 13th... If it turns out that the problem is there's a stack of applications on the town clerk's desk I am going to be even more pissed.)
ETA: Just got off the phone with the town clerk's office. They're working on this precinct at the moment... and there are roughly 3000 applications that have arrived but haven't been scanned in yet for processing. So there's a really good chance that my application is in that stack. There are multiple people working on the processing, though, so it's not that one clerk being out is the problem.
For reference about those three thousand pending requests and their percentage of the base? This municipality has seventeen thousand residents.
ETA 2: got an email back.
"We can look in system and get back to you. We have received several thousand in the last two weeks and I’m on on a medical leave so we have one woman doing the work of what could probably be 6 people.
We will look to see if it was delivered to us from USPS, thanks for following up in a timely way. "
...
*counts hastily on calendar*
... dude, is that two week medical leave a COVID quarantine?
Filled it out the same day and sent it back the next day.
No ballot in my mailbox yet, but my official 'no, you don't have to show up for jury duty' document arrived from the jury commissioner today. I put in my 'but I did my jury time int he last three years' request on July 31st, online, and it was processed August 3rd according to my emails.
I phoned the 800 number for the Massachusetts Secretary of State's office to ask about my ballot application status. They went searching.
"Yeah, you haven't received your ballot yet because it looks like they haven't received your application yet... I'll call their office and call you back if you want."
The fuck, USPS. There's a difference between dragging things out in a mailing environment the size of Boston and dragging things out in a town small enough that I can walk from here to the town hall with a pint of ice cream in a bag and still have reasonably solid ice cream by the time I arrive.
(In fairness it may be the town clerk's office's problem, too. I sent an email to the address listed on the Secretary of State's page for voter inquiries for my town and got this bounce message: "From July 27 to August 10 I will be out of the office. I will have limited access to email. Leave a detailed message and we will return your inquiry." Please note that today is August 13th... If it turns out that the problem is there's a stack of applications on the town clerk's desk I am going to be even more pissed.)
ETA: Just got off the phone with the town clerk's office. They're working on this precinct at the moment... and there are roughly 3000 applications that have arrived but haven't been scanned in yet for processing. So there's a really good chance that my application is in that stack. There are multiple people working on the processing, though, so it's not that one clerk being out is the problem.
For reference about those three thousand pending requests and their percentage of the base? This municipality has seventeen thousand residents.
ETA 2: got an email back.
"We can look in system and get back to you. We have received several thousand in the last two weeks and I’m on on a medical leave so we have one woman doing the work of what could probably be 6 people.
We will look to see if it was delivered to us from USPS, thanks for following up in a timely way. "
...
*counts hastily on calendar*
... dude, is that two week medical leave a COVID quarantine?
