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Our kid was disenfranchised this cycle. He got his drivers license before his official name change and we don’t know how to rectify it. He doesn’t want to deal with it on a time crunch due to starting college and I honestly don’t blame him.
We will have it sorted by next time.
Is there any supporting documentation for the name change? Sort of like how people can show a marriage certificate after they get married if their last name changed?
Oh yeah, he has all that stuff. He’s just really overwhelmed right now and it’s mental energy I don’t want to ask him to spend. We’re not a swing state so it’s not crucial or anything.
There weren’t any local elections he should vote in?
Solid, locked up even. We’re in a suburb of Denver and our rep hasn’t been (R) for decades. County level nothing interesting or important. Local is in two years.
What I’m seeing through your comments here is that your kid trusts you enough to get you into the weeds with them on this problem, has a good enough sense of judgement not to want to just fudge their name to follow the path of least resistance (don’t want to do election fraud in a technical, though not real, sense), and you all have thought through it all and realized it’s a battle not worth having, given your local and statewide political makeup as well as the stress it would cause your kid. It seems like your kid is comfortable with you, self-aware, and capable of making the sorts of pragmatic decisions that many adults cannot make.
Damn. Do you mind asking your kid what it feels like to have good parents that are preparing them to tackle life’s challenges?Presented kind of as a joke, but good job. Seriously.
Why does his drivers license specifically have to match up with his ID to be able to vote? That seems really weird. (Also, could he pretend to just not have one?)
His name changed legally, the voter registration didn’t get updated.
I’m not going to teach my kid to defraud the gov’t.
Oh, so he has a new ID but I assume registered to vote before the name change and the registration is tied to the name? Ah yeah that sounds like a pain in the ass.
Yeah, exactly. And since we’re vote by mail they would just check the signature but he wouldn’t want to use his dead name and couldn’t remember how to match the signature in any case.
Ah so everything is going exactly to plan then.
Murica, why so stoopid and arse?
