TWF 288: Absentee Ballots In New York State! (How to vote if you can't be in town!)

Hello, Freeporters (and everyone else!)

Election Day is Tuesday, November 6^th, and if you're registered, you all need to vote  It's the most fundamental right we have as Americans, people have died for it, and you know all the reasons to do it.  After all, you read The Weekly Freeporter, and surely other things, and are therefore pretty well informed, right?

“But, Jesse, what if I can't? What if I have to be out of town?  What if I'm scheduled for surgery?"

Well, there's actually an answer to that, and – as I found out while researching for a friend – it's not at all too late (as of 10/30/2018!) to put a plan into place! See, while New York State has a myriad of problems, it's actually pretty good about absentee ballots, provided you are already a registered voter.

According to the New York State Absentee Voting website, the procedure for getting an Absentee Ballot (which you can send in to be counted if you aren't in town!) are as follows:

• First, you must fill out an application. (You can get a printable .PDF format version at the above website which will detail all the specifics)
• Second, assuming you live in Nassau County, you must take it to the Nassau County Board of Elections 240 Old Country Road, #5 Mineola NY, 11501. (If you live in Suffolk County, that information can be accessed at their website by clicking this link. ) If you don't have an application printed out, you can get an application at the Board.
• Third, and this is key: You MUST bring the application in-person up until the day before the election. It is already too late to MAIL the application in. Bring as many forms of identification as you feel you may need (preferably 2).

Assuming all goes well, once your application is approved you will get an absentee ballot that you can fill out and mail in. At least, that seems to be the case; the websites in question are a little less clear about what to do with an absentee ballot, but that's where you, dear reader, demonstrate your intelligence by being very clear in asking questions. Remember, the people working for the county are here to help you exercise your right to vote. As long as your are polite to them, they'll be happy to help!

If you go this route, please leave a comment or write a message with how the procedure went!

Jesse Pohlman is the writer of the not-so-weekly-these-days The Weekly Freeporter. He also writes various novels, available on Amazon's Kindle.

TWF 287: Noting Lee Zeldin's Deceptive Campaign Mailers Upon Second Offense.

Greetings, Freeporters,

Reminder: The Weekly Freeporter does not endorse candidates for Freeport-related races.

Lee Zeldin is an incumbent Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing New York's First District in the lower seat of our national legislature. This makes him a man with extraordinary power and, with it, an extraordinary responsibility: To be honest to the people of the country, in keeping with his Oath to defend and preserve the Constitution.

He has, now twice, failed at keeping his Oath, and we cannot overlook this' mistake'.

Why 'Mistakes About The Date' Matter

As reported by David M. Schwartz at Newsday, Lee Zeldin recently sent out a mailer to many of his constituents which sought to inform them on what day they could vote. This could happily be considered “Voter Outreach,” expect that Zeldin actually sent out the wrong date. But, this is just a mistake, and mistakes happen, right? Well, as Newsday noted and Adam Peck from Think Progress confirms in excruciatingly sharp detail, this isn't the first time Zeldin has done this.

Doing this once might be considered a mistake; misprints happen, typos slip through editors, and sometimes people just write the wrong day. Okay. Fine. Once. But, once you've made that particular screw-up, you sure as hell don't make it again, because you don't get to play the, “We were careless and we're sorry” card, again, okay?  You did it in 2016 and got caught and shamed for it; you're doing it again in 2018?

Lee Zeldin must be doing this deliberately.

I won't go too deep into national politics, but Georgia Secretary of State & Republican Candidate for Governor is suppressing over 53,000 voter registrations, most of whom are Black – among other things he's doing. North Dakota's Republican-led legislature is disenfranchising Native Americans en-masse.  In Arkansas, PBS reports a Democratic candidate for Secretary of State was left off of the ballot in one county.   Let's just say this fits a trend, and if you really want to discuss or defend that trend, then you've got a lot of questions to answer, and let's go back to the local focus that The Weekly Freeporter aims to provide.

The truth is, Lee Zeldin can try to claim a mistake was made all he'd like; he can even offer to pay any FEC fines or even send out correction letters. (Yes, he should be forced to spend campaign funds to send a mailer to every single resident in his district to apologize for the mistake and make a correction) What he's done by sending out the wrong date was to deliberately mis-inform some voters who won't get or see that any correction. They'll go on thinking the election is the wrong date. They might even show up to vote and get told they missed it, and given the three-or-so week window since then, they might not even be sure where they first heard the wrong date, from.

This hypothetical Citizen, this patriot who had their vote stolen, might have wanted to vote for Zeldin! She might have just wanted to vote for Cuomo for governor. That's the imaginary person's decision; the point is that this person could even come across this very article when looking for an explanation, and might say, “Why did this guy get away with this?”

Why SHOULD this guy get away with it?
 - Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

So To Sum It Up...

Listen, I'm not trying to be specifically political, here. I'm not arguing any stance other than, “It should be noted that Lee Zeldin has, twice now, misinformed voters as to the date of the election; it is not credible to simply assume this was the result of a genuine error, given that they were called out for it publicly the first time.” I'm also arguing that Zeldin should be required by FEC law to provide a correction for a second mistake – and, given that he almost certainly isn't, we need a change to election laws to fix this.

Thank you for reading!

Jesse Pohlman is a freelance writer who spent nearly thirty years of his life living in Freeport.  He also writes sci-fi and fantasy novels, mostly available on the Amazon Kindle.

TWF 286: Does The Earlene Hooper Saga Continue With Write-In Campaign?

Freeporters,

I hope you're all having a fantastic Thursday, and that you're keeping those suffering from Hurricane Michael in your minds as that storm rolls through the south, reminding us all of how Hurricane Sandy hit us.

Earlene Hooper is a name synonymous with "Freeport Legends," if for no other reason that she has been involved with myriad contentious issues with Village residents.  I've already chronicled this history multiple times (I encourage you to give it a read), but the two greatest conflicts she had with Freeporters in general remain, A; her adamant refusal to allow the Freeport Armory to be transferred to the Village Of Freeport, and, B; her extraordinarily surprising attempt, in collaboration with then-Freeport Mayor Andrew Hardwick, to convince Freeport to house a garbage incinerator.

I know I recycle this image a lot, but they made a whole frikkin' video about this thing.

I've spoken before, both on this very blog and even in-person at an event hosted by Adelphi University (I had the true honor of sharing a stage with Anthony J Miller, of the Freeport School District Board of Education!  Squeee!) about how New York State hasn't come close to escaping the gerrymandering that so many states embrace to limit voter turnout.  Freeport is, for those who don't know, split across multiple districts (on many levels of government...), meaning our full voice doesn't get to vote for any one leader, but rather many chunks of our populace are lumped in with those from many other communities also sometimes split into parts, all to create safety for incumbent politicians.  That's what makes Taylor Raynor's victory against Mrs. Hooper so impressive; while Freeporters might have been natural allies, she had to contend with many other small constituencies to win.

Is Hooper Running A Write-In Campaign?

Today I want to let everyone know that Earlene Hooper's time in politics is not necessarily over, for better or worse, because after her defeat in the democratic Primary for New York State Legislative District 18 at the hands of Taylor Raynor, rumors (from who I will happily concede is a credible source) are flying on Facebook trying to claim that she is planning on running a write-in campaign.  However, I'm going to assess what truth I can find in this concern.

First of all, Google is my friend; I searched for news articles having to do with Hooper running a write-in campaign and...Came up empty.  I next searched for any sort of website tied to Hooper running a re-election campaign.  I...Also came up empty!  I searched Facebook and Twitter, the top-two word-of-mouth machines necessary for such a campaign for active accounts and...Still, nothing.  Ballotpedia didn't chart anything about a write-in, either.  The only thing I found still up-and-running was her official NYS Assembly page, and that didn't look updated at all.

Now, maybe there is information that I'm yet to be aware of; or, maybe there was an effort, since-abandoned.  After all, I am not on any e-mail list Hooper may have accumulated over the years, and since I cannot find any active accounts (I mean, not even an official Twitter account? Or am I missing it?) for her, I can't be sure if I'm simply blocked or otherwise excluded from viewing it.

The Conclusion...

Let's be honest:  Write-in campaigns are long shots, anyway, often undertaken for farcical reasonsand made complicated by spelling errors and general electioneering trickery.  Lisa Murkowski, a U.S. Senator representing Alaska, is the most famous example of one working.  However, it took a massive political effort to effectively communicate with and mobilize volunteers to recruit voters who would be prepared to successfully cast a write-in vote.

The complete absence of any visible, easily-accessible social media presence, as well as a thorough lack of a serious campaign website for social media efforts to guide volunteers and donations towards, indicates that even if Mrs. Hooper were to decide at the last minute to try for a write-in campaign, she simply won't have the resources in place to succeed.

With that said, as always, The Weekly Freeporter as a publication does not endorse candidates, and we urge you to vote for who you think will best support your community.  Thanks for reading!


Jesse Pohlman is a long-time Freeport resident who sometimes just likes to share what he's thinking about it.  He's also a science-fiction and fantasy writer you can check out on Amazon!