I live in Arkansas and voted in 2016 and 2020. When I attempted to vote early in 2024, I was told I was not registered and had never been registered. I tried to correct the issue that week before the general, and the Secretary of State required me to order a new birth certificate, have it notarized, and submit my new registration for review. Obviously that took nearly 3 months. I finally got a notice in February that my registration was not accepted due to “inconsistencies” with my….
…birth certificate. They said it didn’t match the one they had on file. And either way, that’s fucked. Because first of all, they shouldn’t have one on file. Secondly, if they do, of course it’s different. That original one is from roughly 30 years ago. But no actual personal data is different from the photocopy I still have of my original. The current status is that I am not eligible due to an inability to verify residency and citizenship. Yet I literally work for the state of Arkansas.
Important context I meant to include but forgot: We are allowed to register as a party voter for primaries or as “optional,” which means we can vote in either primary. I had been registered as Optional in 2016 and 2020. I changed to Democrat in 2023 when our state legislature was attempting to require partisan registration to vote in party primaries. I can’t help but find that extremely coincidental that the problem started then, considering out Nepogovernor and attorney general are MAGAts.