Voter supression

Hola lovely people!

Since it's voting season, I wanted to share a story with y'all about how voter suppression is ALIVE and well, and came knocking all the way to my Belizean door.

On Tuesday, October 13th, I went on a little one hour road trip to the U.S. Embassy, based in the capital of Belize, Belmopan. I was doing so with another American citizen, who was also very excited to go and fill out the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballots (FWAB) with me. The U.S. Embassy would then mail it in for us and it would be mailed in time.

*Get this*Even though we filled out our information on the official fvap.gov website to cast our absentee ballots online because that's WAY easier especially considering the global pandemic situation, and we are abroad, we still HAVE TO MAIL in our ballots. I know, it doesn't make a lick of sense to me either, but we were excited because we could save on postage and time. The U.S. Embassy in Belize would mail it for us, all we had to do was show up. Easy, right?

Honey, we were there early!

*This was prolly the first time in history Black folks showed up to vote so early besides when Obama was running for President! lol :D

Anyway, we filled out our write-in ballots, went to the window of the U.S. Embassy and watched our sealed envelopes, get scanned and wiped down to make sure they weren't contaminated in anyway.

It was official business people, and I whipped out my camera phone and took photos to commemorate the moment.

My friend and I both gave each other high fives and even changed our facebook profile pictures to VOTE, Make a Plan!

We voted and it felt good chile! :D

So...you can imagine my utter confusion, when about a week later, I get an email stating that my absentee ballot application CANNOT be processed as received.

Hmm? How was it received? In an official United States Embassy envelope? Clearly filled out, no typos?

I got this email twice, the most recent was this passed Friday which stated that the last day to send in my absentee ballot would be October 27th and rerouted me to this link: https://nycabsentee.com/

Mind you, the OFFICIAL LINK for the absentee ballot is this link:

https://www.fvap.gov/fwab-privacy-notice

Anyway, I briefly panicked, but then called the borough I am registered with in Brooklyn, NY to clarify. And ladies and gentlemen I kid you not, this is what I was told, "Yes, we have received a lot of calls about that email, but our office did not send that out. We have contacted our boss to find out where these emails are coming from and who's sending them because they are false."

The borough rep also confirmed that my write-in absentee ballot was not received by their office, but he could see that I am registered.

WOW.

Scary, right? That I could get an email telling me my ballot cannot be processed, but when I called the voting office I am registered with they don't have my ballot or did not send me an email that it was not accepted.

The voter rep advised that I go online once, VOTE AGAIN, and email it in to the office directly so there would be no issues.

THIS IS VOTER SUPRESSION. What if I just gave up after I received that email? And assumed that I had run out of time?

I am so glad I called and cleared everything up!!!