It seems my voice has been lost and they’ve stolen my power!
I received my Florida Mail In Ballot on September 18th; it was promptly completed and popped into a bright red, Royal Mail post box, on Monday the 21st of September.
That was 44 days ago.
One would think, that even with a global pandemic and an idiot (who also happens to be a major Trump financial supporter) in charge of the United States Postal Service, 44 days would have been more than enough time for my ballot to be received and counted.
…but apparently it wasn’t.
Much to my dismay, when I checked the status of my mail-in vote yesterday (on the official Broward County website; https://www.browardsoe.org/Voter-Information/Voter-Lookup-Free-Access-System), my ballot was showing as not received.
Forty-four days was not enough time for an envelope, to get from London to Miami.
How pathetic.
I’m feeling cheated, ripped off, and silenced. I have been let down by one of America’s oldest, strongest, and trusted institutions.
It has been 48 years since I placed my first vote. My vote has always mattered. It’s always been counted. But not this year. Not this race… the most important race in perhaps several hundred years.
My blood boils when I read headlines like these….
“Judge orders Election Day sweep for missing mail ballots, including in South Florida.”
“USPS disregards court order to conduct sweeps in 12 postal districts after more than 300,000 ballots can’t be traced.”
Postal Service Says NO to Judge Who Ordered Hunt for 300,000 Missing Ballots
With the country in the midst of a global pandemic our government had a responsibility to ensure that the United States Postal Service had everything that it needed to receive, process and deliver completed ballots, quickly, safely and effectively.
Instead, we had postal workers discarding ballots, Postal Service organisations refusing to follow Court Orders, a Post Master General who could not tell Congress how much it cost to mail a postcard, and one (who weeks after stepping into his new role) stood by watching as the post office experienced widespread delays in the delivery of the mail, across the country, while he ordered mailboxes removed from street corners.
This is America, where every vote is supposed count. Where every vote MUST count. Our democracy depends on it. What have we become?
The talking heads are now telling me that Florida is a done deal; Florida chose Trump, again. So my one little vote, would not have mattered anyway… but it mattered to ME! I would like to have known, that my voice had been heard and my vote recorded.
Maybe in the next day or so, my ballot will magically appear and be counted. It wont make a damn bit of difference, but at least I’ll feel better.
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Apparently, I’ve been radicalisesd and I wasn’t aware. ~ JOHN PAVLOVITZ
Certain people call me the “radical Left” all the time.
I never considered myself radical before.
I just thought I was normal, ordinary, usual.
I thought equity was important to everyone.
I imagined America was filled with people who took that Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness stuff seriously—for all people.
I thought the Golden Rule was actually mainstream.
Recently I took an inventory of my positions, screening for the extremism:
I believe in full LGBTQ rights.
I believe we should protect the planet.
I believe everyone deserves healthcare.
I believe all religions are equally valid.
I believe the world is bigger than America.
I believe to be “pro-life,” means to treasure all of it.
I believe women should have autonomy over their own bodies.
I believe whiteness isn’t superior and it is not the baseline of humanity.
I believe we are all one interdependent community.
I believe people and places are made better by diversity.
I believe people shouldn’t be forced to abide by anyone else’s religion.
I believe non-American human beings have as much value as American ones.
I believe generosity is greater than greed, compassion better than contempt, and kindness superior to derision.
I believe there is enough in this world for everyone: enough food, enough money, enough room, enough care—if we unleash our creativity and unclench our fists.
rantings of a madwoman 
It says enough to me that British people who have been over there publicly supporting Trump include Katie Hopkins and Nigel Farage. I stayed up to see what happened in Florida, as if it had gone to Biden, it would have indicated a possible Democrat landslide. I wanted to go to bed feeling hopeful, instead I got disappointment and a couple of hours of broken sleep. I hope the outcome is eventually Biden, achieved without further trouble and violence. Still I can’t believe that so many Americans actually want 4 more years of the same dangerous nonsense.I just heard him again making his lying claim that there’s been extensive fraud with the mail-in ballots.
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Yup… I did not watch last night because I wanted to sleep. I was up at 5:00 and almost fell over! It is SOOOOO close, I am shocked. I honestly believe there was some ‘hanky panky’ going on in the state of Florida with mail in ballots. The Governor is a HUGE Trump supporter and it is common knowledge that mail in votes are usually democrate! Thanks for your comment! I appreciate you reading my rant!
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I have some personal interest as I have a daughter and grandson living in the States, although he is currently back here. He’s on a soccer scholarship and they were all sent home as a result of COVID-19, but he’s going back in January. She lives in Brooklyn and his college is in Minnesota, both safely Democrat I’m glad to say. She seems settled and he says he wants to stay there, largely because of his girlfriend whom he’s missing terribly. I remind him that not so long ago, they would have had to rely on Airmail and an occasional very expensive phone call to keep in touch, rather than skyping several times a day.
From what you say, any dubious practice with regard to mail-in votes is probably on the Republican side. I wonder that anybody could vote for a person who so blatantly hobbled the mail like Trump tried, the crook.
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Oh cool. Good for him! You must miss them… I believe the “dubious practices” are on the Republican side… but what do I know. If I claimed that to be TRUTH, I’d be no better than Trump, who says the Democrates are trying to steal the election, without a shred of proof. What a mess. I am so disappointed in my fellow Americans.
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