09/25/2005   English German
  Edition # 56  
San Francisco, 09-25-2005

Missing election documents

Angelika Around here, hurricanes are raging, and in yours, it's election chaos. However, it's not my fault because, even though I wanted to dutifully exercise my right to vote in the federal election, I was unable to cast my vote. I already mentioned in the newsletter that you have to apply to be entered into the electoral register of the municipality (in my case, Munich) where you were last registered in Germany (Rundbrief 09/2002), seperately for each election.

The department responsible then sends the postal voting documents to you. Due to the early election, the schedule was particularly tight this time, as the postal voting documents were only sent out at the end of August. A letter to San Francisco takes a good five to seven days, and then everything has to be sent back after marking the ballot, as the completed voting documents must be received by 6 p.m. on election day, which in Germany is a Sunday, a day when the mail carrier is known not to work.

The election was approaching, but our mailbox remained completely empty. So I decided to call the election office at the district administration department in Munich and prepared myself for a conversation with a grumpy Bavarian official. However, the woman on the phone was extremely nice and informed me that my application had been received properly and that they had sent the election documents to 3370 in San Francisco. Unfortunately, our house number is 3770.

In America, however, mail is delivered strictly according to the address and not the name of the recipient. This means that the letter did not reach me because the tiny error, which caused astonishment at the election office. The friendly lady promised to take care of it and call me back. The next day, our answering machine was indeed blinking, and when I listened to it, a shrill melody first played, probably the same one that everyone hears when they are on hold with the district administration office.

I was supposed to provide my fax number via telephone, after which the election office would fax a template of an affidavit. I would then sign it, and the election documents would be sent out again. However, I was unable to give the election office my fax number: after two hours of trying to get through, I gave up in frustration and went to bed, because due to the time difference, you can only call German authorities at night our time.

The whole thing probably wouldn't have worked out anyway because of the long postal delivery times. I even called the responsible post office in San Francisco in search of my absentee voting materials. But they couldn't help me either and just said that the letter would be returned to the sender (hmm!). Or my documents are floating around in the Mexican neighborhood "Mission," because house number 3370 is there.

Greetings from the house with the number 3770:

Angelika und Michael

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