Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Disenfranchisementarianism

The village-town line runs right through our house. The Boy sleeps in the village, and we sleep in the town. Although only four years old, he knows the village has a little more cachet than the town. When he’s feeling tantrum-y, he’ll lord it over us a bit. We say “no ice cream,” and he says “peasants.”

Our mailbox and front door are in the village, though, and we get one of three local tax bills from the village, so the village elections seemed like a sure bet.

But no. A politically engaged woman who lives in our house — one who rightly dislikes driving on unplowed village roads, especially after having paid taxes presumably for the purpose of plowing — took her engagement to the voting booth last week, and was turned away. Apparently a front door, mailbox, living room and bedroom aren’t enough to earn you the right to vote in this particular village. The bulk of the lot is in town, and town is where we vote.

THIS was taxation without representation! Quick! To the lawyers! Fortunately, we have firebrand, rebel, metalhead lawyer friends! To arms, men! We called them.

They patiently explained that the Board of Elections had the right to pick a voting location for us, and that if they want to use the largest portion of the lot as the determiner of voting location they blah blah blah something about you can’t vote at your vacation home and something-about-Lemmy what-ever.

Of course, the boy voted at least twice, and keeps threatening to call the new mayor – his guy – whenever we make him clean up his part of the village.


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Didn't Ann Coulter get in trouble for voting in one location while her official residence was somewhere else? I'm not sure the civic-minded voting-age female in your household would appreciate the comparison to Ms. Coulter, but. . . my point is that you've got to be careful trying to vote in an election somewhere that you're not eligible to vote. I seem to recall from the Coulter story that in some states, at least, it may be criminal to vote in the wrong place. Scienter -- lawyerese for "knowledge," basically -- is likely one of the elements of the crime, so mistakenly showing up at the wrong voting booth on election day likely won't result in mugshots. But still -- you voting scofflaws need to be careful. Or we'll sic Lemmy on you.

Bill Braine said...

Beware. Beware the tort-wary metalheads...

walkingfool said...

You got to learn to think outside the village boundary lines, dude!

wcs said...

Wow. Not only do you have to beware of the Changeout People and the Dustcatchers in your house. Now you have to contend with... wait for it... the Village People.

Quick, everyone to the YMCA !

Amy Plum said...

Isn't underage voting a tort-worthy offense? And just who was it that got Hud his voting card? I think you can add perjury and aiding and abetting a minor in voting fraud to that! Did you let him drive to the voting booths? Yet another misdemeanor, I would think.

Unless 4 year olds are allowed to vote in your village. You never know about upstate New York.

Bill Braine said...

Oh, yes, the little dear is going through that "criminal" phase. We even bought him the "Li'l Badass Methlab Bath Set™" to help him get it out of his system.