I am a convicted felon, you see - and I just got off parole last week.
On October 2, I wrote an exuberant Diary about my discovery of changes to Texas law that made it legal for felons to vote after they had fully discharged their sentences. It had been 25 long years. I had four days left to register - and my sentence would be fully discharged on the 21st of October. Hooray!
Then I read the registration form the next day and came crashing back down to earth. I was gonna have to commit perjury to fill it out.
No way!
The form clearly stated that under penalty of perjury I had to swear that my sentence was fully discharged. As I wrote in the next Diary I wrote on the subject, I had only done six years (behind bars) on a twenty-five year sentence. After keeping out of trouble since my arrest almost 25 years ago, one infraction - even if I was never convicted - could send me back to prison for the remaining nineteen years of my sentence.
I got a lot of advice in that Diary - and believe it or not, it was all great advice - even when it appeared contradictory. It presented me with ideas and options, and it spurred me to keep going, partly because I'd have been embarrassed not to. I don't know if I would have given up or not; I was really depressed and I had called the office of the (Republican) Secretary of State and been told that I most definitely could not register until I was completely "off paper" even though I could legally vote if registered!
As an ex-con, and trust me on this, nobody is more familiar with the "Catch-22" than me. I know how eager the Republicans have been to cover their election thefts with "voter fraud" prosecutions and I wasn't eager to be a test case - from inside a prison cell.
The option I chose was to write on the registration form (in the extremely limited free space) that I would discharge my sentence on October 21.
On Monday, I got a letter from the registrar's office that my registration had been rejected - for my felony conviction. I called my parole officer (uh, EX parole officer) and she said that she had gotten notification from the state to close my case - but that I wouldn't get my official discharge for 45 days. She did say, however, that she would be glad to fax the info she had to anyone who needed it. I then called the registrar.
Ever see the movie "Groundhog Day?" I would wade through the menu, wait forever for an operator, get the operator, ask to talk to the nice lady in the registrar's office I had found helpful before and get transferred - back to the menu. I did this about 10 or 15 times before I finally got through. When I did, the nice lady said that what my PO had would be sufficient - if she would call and fax the info to her.
Hoo boy. Called My PO back. Not surprisingly, she was unable to get through - she actually had a job to do and I was off her caseload anyway. So I called the nice lady in the registrar's office back.
You can possibly imagine how busy she must be right now - then triple that. But I asked her if there was any possible way that she could initiate the call to my PO. She agreed to do it! Then she actually followed through!
She worked some magic to expedite things and last night I found my name, printed it out and got to the polls this morning five minutes after they opened - still filled with trepidation. There were already at least a hundred people ahead of me, but the line moved really fast. I hadn't received my official registration card yet, but I took a recent bill with my address, my ID and the printout - along with (shaky, unofficial) proof that my case was closed.
I was imagining all sorts of scenarios, but I saw a sign that said "Driver's license votes faster," and relaxed a bit. I didn't need the card! Then I got to the voting area and a lady swiped my DL. Then again. She looked puzzled and swiped (the magnetic strip on my driver's license) a third time. Nothing.
I was about to turn into a babbling idiot, but she entered some info from my DL and asked me about the street I had lived on 25 years ago! "Wha.." I replied, "I haven't lived there in 25 years! Is there a problem?" (I KNEW it!)
"No" she said, "Sign here." I signed the book, she handed me a little slip of paper and my DL - and pointed me to a machine.
I hadn't used one of those damned "magic box" (no paper trail here) machines but it was easy to figure out. Every time I pressed "enter" next to a Democratic name, it was like firing an arrow at the black heart of corruption of the Republican rule we have been subjected to. I had to dial it back a bit because I was getting a bit vehement - and I was afraid I was gonna break the machine.
And then I was out the door.