Despite my best efforts and daily phone calls to the Dallas County Elections Office, my absentee ballot never showed up. So I came home for the final day of early voting in Texas, and I'm now going to the polls, which will require solving several problems, none of which I caused.

I'm not even close to the only voter facing this problem, but I'm one of the very few who can afford to *fly home from California* in a desperate attempt to make sure my ballot is counted. I am still not convinced it will work. Some background: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/29/texas-mail-in-ballot-absentee/

Okay, I’m in line. It seems long, but not insurmountably so. That might be because this is a higher-income, majority white neighborhood. Majority-minority precincts experience higher rates of poll closure and higher numbers of voters per location. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/30/midterm-elections-closed-voting-sites-impact-minority-voter-turnout/1774221002/

Just in case this does take hours, I’ve brought a sandwich, for sustenance. I’m also wearing my face mask, because Texas Republicans refused to broaden access to mail-in voting in the midst of a deadly pandemic (and sabotaged the USPS, which is why I’m here in the first place).

Once I get to the front of the line, Dallas County election officials have told me I need to formally request my ballot by mail be cancelled - the ballot that never arrived. This will require that the on-site poll workers call the county office, plus several additional forms.

My brother, who was in a similar situation, was instructed to cast a provisional ballot and inaccurately told that he had no other options. My OTHER brother, in college, luckily received his ballot - but only after calling to find out that his first application had been “lost.”

I’m inside, and I’ve been directed to the election judge at this location. Going to stop tweeting so I can focus. Wish me luck!

Good news:

So I just voted in Dallas County. Here's what it took:
- voter registration
- a government ID
- one application for ballot by mail
- two hours on the phone with the county
- a flight to Dallas during a pandemic
- assistance from an election judge, who had to call HQ on my behalf

If you're coming back to Texas to vote because your ballot never arrived, different counties have different processes for cancelling the ballot by mail. In Dallas, you can ask that the election judge call HQ in order to do so, on the spot! You are not allowed to call HQ yourself.

This is obviously not what democracy looks like. Most people cannot spend this many hours and literally hundreds of dollars to vote. And voting itself is only one piece of a much, much larger picture for what we need to do to build a world that treats all people with dignity.

If you are a registered voter in Texas and you have questions about how to make sure your ballot is counted, please get in touch and I will try my best to help you.

We deserve better than this. #VOTE