What do homeless people do if they live in PA and want to vote?

[LaydeeBug]

Don't you need an address to obtain an id? Are the homeless now disenfranchised even further than their impoverished circumstances?

[leveymg]

1. Because if you ask Bork, that was the Original Intent of the Founders.

This is all about returning to the 18th Century. They don't call them conservative legal scholars for nothing.

[arcane1]

2. For that matter, how do they determine their polling place?

[HopeHoops]

3. Relocate their cardboard boxes to right outside the polling place.

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. As I understand it, this is a problem in all states.

Without a residence of some kind, they can not vote. My right to vote in my district is linked to my residence. If I move, even to another house in the same district, I must change my registration.

In California, I am not required to show ID, but I do sign the voter list to acknowledge that I am the person living there. If my residence changes, and I sign anyway, I am literally committing voter fraud.

The third box from the left under the interstate 5 overpass doesn't count. I cannot register at a PO box or a business address where I am employed. It must be a legal residence.

The homeless are disenfranchised in all states.

[xxqqqzme]

5. Yes, but in California

you WILL be given a provisional ballot. Your signature on the provisional ballot will be checked against your registration signature. You will be given a receipt w/ the prov ballot number. There is a number, on the receipt, to call to learn the status of your vote.
I had to vote provisionally in the primary. (I moved after the ballots were mailed). It might sound screwy but it works. You can vote by provitional ballot at ANY polling place.

[Agnosticsherbet]

8. Not if you are homeless.

A homeless person is disenfranchised in all states.

Yes, if I move I can get a provisional ballot that Republicans will try to challenge to death, but if I move out of a district, I will still likely be SOL.

About two special elections ago, they moved my polling place. My ballot information mailed by the state had the wrong polling place. They offered to let my cast a provisional ballot. I just asked for the new address and went there. It is good to know that the system works. But then, this is California. They just past a bill allowing same day registration here. I'm stoked.

[xxqqqzme]

10. Nope!

I have attended 3 different poll workers training sessions and it is stressed EVERYone showing up to vote, gets to vote. No ID. No drivers license. Give them the tools to vote.

[Agnosticsherbet]

12. That is good to know.

Thanks, that is good to know.

[LaydeeBug]

6. I find this troubling. One person, one vote. nt

[jsmirman]

7. The provisional ballot may be the answer, so

I don't want to detract from that answer.

I can tell you that in PA in 2008 (I was a "fellow" - meaning semi-permanent volunteer working for free and a fancy title "fellow&quot , we *could* register people using an area of the registration form that could actually indicate "Person A lives next to this intersection" - you could draw an x on something that, iirc showed the four corners of an intersection.

The point being that no one was trying to do anything unfair with the vote. Person A actually "belonged" to that particular voting subdivision, and no one was trying to use the homeless as some sort of mobile voting force - all anyone was trying to do was give an individual US citizen the right to cast his or her one vote in the Election, just like any other citizen.

The problem was having them be able to receive their registration docs in the mail - I *believe* that we were able to have this work in a situation where they received mail in a tangible location. But tbh, I'm not sure what the ultimate outcome was in these cases, because I had to leave the campaign before these would have been "received" back in the mail, as my first semester of law school was starting. So it's possible that every effort I or anyone else made to register a homeless person failed. I know that I thought they had the right to vote just like anyone else and that's why I tried to register them.

If anyone knows how this all shook out in Pennsylvania, please, let us know. Allentown Jake was on the campaign all the way through, so he might know.

[cbayer]

9. I'm not technically homeless, but I don't have a physical address.

That made it difficult to get a PO Box, which I found ludicrous. It is apparently a part of the Patriot Act that you have to have a physical address to get a PO Box. I asked them this: Why would I need a PO Box if I had a physical address?? They couldn't answer me

It also made it very difficult to register to vote, though I was eventually able to do it.

And I wasn't counted in the census.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Not just an address, but 2 sources proving it.

Lease, utility bills, etc.

How many people who aren't homeless don't have those documents in their name?

[Cleita]

13. This was a problem my husband and I encountered when we

became RVers. Since we were wandering around from state to state picking up seasonal work when we could, we didn't have a permanent address, just a mail drop. We found it problematic for other reasons than voting. It was hard to renew drivers' licenses and plates. We found ourself just registering in the state we happened to land in when things became due. It led to having sometimes license plates from Texas, and driver licenses from Idaho and Nevada. We really couldn't vote without committing voter fraud so we didn't except one Presidential election where we had been in residence in CA for the right number of months. Not only homeless people have this problem. It really disenfranchises a whole group of people who don't have a mainstream lifestyle.