The Adventures of Sheila the Wonderbink

I wrote a letter.

I got a letter back.

I should write letters more often.

Okay, emails, but still. A nice young man on Twitter pointed me to this article in the AJC about all the voter suppression legislation working its way through the Georgia legislature right now. I hit up the My Voter Page at the Secretary of State website and found out who my reps were (and thought, hey, yeah, I remember voting for these gals!) so I could email them and urge them to take these things seriously. Because they were dealing with different bills, I wrote them different letters. I recommend you nice Georgia-residing folks do the same.

Dear Representative Roberts:

My name is Sheila O’Shea and I am a resident of Sandy Springs. I proudly voted for you in the November election.

It is my understanding that a shocking number of restrictions on voting are being considered in the Georgia House. I am particularly concerned about the limits on absentee voting, making it more difficult to request a ballot and making it harder to drop off at a drop box. I voted absentee in the runoff election, and found the process simple and easy. I would hate to have that taken away. The Republicans seem to have a strange notion—actually articulated by some of its members—that voting is a privilege and not a fundamental right of every citizen of age.

Their spite seems to extend to innocuous things like providing snacks and drinks to voters in line regardless of whom they may be voting for. How does this prevent voter fraud? If they were providing these things on condition of voting for a specific candidate, there are already laws on the books to address that. But when I sat in line in November to vote, two young ladies came by with bottled water, chips and granola bars and offered them to me without questioning who I was voting for, only thanking me for voting at all. The real solution for this is to provide enough voting machines so that no one has to stand in line for hours to perform their civic duty.

Please do what you are able to limit these potential limitations (and others I have not detailed here). Voting is the root of our democracy and it should not be made harder, but easier, so that more citizens can participate.

Thank you,

Sheila O’Shea

+++

Dear Senator Jordan—

My name is Sheila O’Shea and I live in Sandy Springs. I am proud to have you as my Senator.

I am writing because of my concerns about legislation introduced into the Georgia Senate regarding voting rights. The increased restrictions on absentee ballots are particularly worrisome. I voted absentee in the runoff election and it made the process so much easier. Surely, we want full participation in the democratic process—placing unnecessary obstacles in the path of voters is a detriment to our nation.

It’s my understanding that Senate Bill 74 would permit poll watchers to enter ballot tabluation areas. I worry that this would open the gate to intimidation tactics used directly on poll workers. Poll watchers should be kept within the limits they currently stand in. Please make sure you are present to vote against this.

There are quite a number of bills regarding election procedures in the Senate. I ask that you read them carefully and vote in the direction of making voting convenient and simple, while still retaining security.

Thank you,

Sheila O'Shea

+++

Today I took pleasure in writing these letters, weirdly enough. It felt good to put my anxiety to some kind of productive use.

Today I learned where the website for the Georgia General Assembly is.

I know you're probably exhausted with all the shit you had to go through to cast your ballot in the midterms. How would you like to make it easier for upcoming elections?

There is a runoff election on December 4th. Runoff elections are what happen in Georgia when the Libertarians get enough votes to keep any one candidate from scoring the 51% they need to win. There are two positions to be filled. One is the Public Service Commissioner (Chuck Eaton, Republican, versus Lindy Miller, Democrat) and the other is the Secretary of State (Brad Raffensperger, Republican, versus John Barrow, Democrat).

Hey, waitaminute, did I just say Secretary of State? Why, yes, yes I did.

Yes, the position of Secretary of State, the person who handles elections in Georgia, is up for grabs. Still.

So, John Barrow (not to be confused with John Barrowman, as amazing as a contest like that would be) is our Democratic candidate, and he has some thoughts about the electoral process in Georgia in an editorial for the AJC that reads more like a campaign speech, but what the hey, it all looks good to me.

The bad news is, there doesn't appear to be any early voting for it, so you have to show up on December 4th at your official polling place (I haven't even been to mine, yet, so this will be an adventure) to cast your ballot. The good news is, turnouts for runoffs are even lower than the typical turnout for midterms, so if you sat through long lines, you won't sit through them this time.

I'm not seeing nearly enough about this out in the socialmediasphere, and it really needs to be out there. Remember, whoever takes the post of Secretary of State now, will still be in charge when 2020 rolls around.

Imagine how things could go with a fair counting.

The deadline to register for the midterm elections in the State of Georgia is October 9th.

I got a lot to say, but I wanted to get that out there first.

If you have not yet registered, you can go to sos.ga.gov and click on ELECTIONS. Then click on REGISTER TO VOTE. If you can’t remember that by the time you click away to the other tab, do a search on “secretary of state georgia” and the Google will take you right there.

“But, Sheila,” you might say, “I’m already registered to vote. Why should I worry about this?”

“But, you theoretical person,” I will say in reply, “Are you quite sure you’re still registered?”

Since the post-Gorsuch Supreme Court decision allowing states to purge people from the voter rolls if they haven’t voted lately, many states have been busy getting rid of people who only vote presidentially, and, even then, only if they feel like it. There was a special election in March. In July, there was a primary and non-partisan general election (which means that even if you don’t vote Democrat or Republican, you still had people to vote for). If you skipped March and July, or maybe even just July, you could potentially be stripped of your right to vote and have to register all over again.

“But, Sheila,” you might ask, “How will I know? It would be awful to go all the way to the polling place and find out that I’m not registered anymore, since by then it will be too late to register for the election!”

“Rest easy, theoretical person,” I will reply, “It’s actually quite easy to find out.”

Go to mvp.sos.ga.gov. (If the link doesn't work, just type it in.) MVP stands for My Voter Page, but if Most Valuable Player sticks it in your memory better, go with that. You can also get there by Googling your way to the Secretary of State website, and clicking on WHERE DO I VOTE? (MVP). Under where it says MVP Login put your information in from your voter registration—your first initial, your last name (according to the voter rolls—if you’re like me and have a weird name with an apostrophe or something in it, go with the version that the computer system has mutilated it into), your county of residence (more on that in a sec) and your date of birth.

An aside—if your place of residence now is different than the place of residence you had when you registered to vote, then go fix that shit, okay? Just go to where you get registered and update your registration. Otherwise, some bozo on Fox News is going to parade you around as evidence of rampant voter fraud, even if you’re the only one they have the goods on. Plus, you’d end up voting for local elections that have no bearing on your actual situation.

So. Anyway. So you put in your info and you have a Your Voter Page. (Yeaye!) The big thing that it will have is your designated polling place. This is the place you go to do your voting if you vote on the actual day of the election. If you’ve voted before, pay very close attention to this because they’ve been changing them! I found this out when I was going through writing this—my polling place has changed from High Point Elementary School to High Point Episcopal Community Church. Why, it’s almost as if they were expecting me to glance at it, see the words “High Point” and not read any further, so I could show up at High Point Elementary and not have time to get to the other polling station.

I hardly ever vote on the actual day, because Georgia is enlightened enough—yes, I used the words “enlightened” and “Georgia” in the same sentence, but work with me here—to have early voting. To find out when and where you can early vote, click the link labeled “Click here for Early Voting Locations and Times” and scroll through to see what works best for you. If you’ve voted before and you use early voting, definitely check to make your your usual early voting polling place is still on the list. Because, guess what, mine isn’t. I normally vote at the North Fulton Annex, and I scrolled up and down and it’s not there. I’m not sure what it is about my neck of the woods that’s so threatening to Brian Kemp—who is not only the Secretary of State, but the Republican Candidate for Governor—but I have to drive to Buckhead now if I want to vote early in a convenient fashion.

So you’re registered and you’ve picked out where you’re going to vote. You know you’re voting for Stacy Abrams—which I sincerely hope you are—and you’re good, right?

[maniacal laugh] No.

You need to know in advance what is going to be on the ballot. Everything.

“But, Sheila,” you might inquire, “How I can find out what’s going to be on the ballot before I set foot in the voting booth?”

“Come now, theoretical person,” I will answer, “Surely you’ve figured this one out by now.”

“The My Voter Page!” you could exclaim.

“Precisely!” I would naturally respond.

On the left side of Your Voter Page, you will find your personal details according to the voter rolls. If anything is askew, you can click the Change Voter Information button and they will blink you over to the page to register to vote. Below that button is a link that says “Click here for Sample Ballots”. Click it. You’ll get a little pop-up with some disclaimers and a little link that will say, for this election at least, “Sample Ballot (Non-Partisan)”. Click that. You will get a lovely PDF with everything there is to be voted for on it.

This is important because this is one of those elections where amendments to the Georgia Constitution are voted on, as well as tax exemptions and local or municipal issues. If you don’t vote, somebody else is going to decide these things. And if you don’t have time to do your research, you might wind up falling for the tricky wording of a constitutional amendment and voting for something really bad. I just looked at my options today and I’m still holding off on making a decision until I’ve had time to do some research on whether “business courts” are a good idea or not.

So there you have it. You, too, can be ready for the midterm elections in the State of Georgia.

I was going to have a big rant about why you should vote, but I’m going to distill it down to this:

Look at the White House. This is what apathy gets you.

The deadline to register for the midterm elections in the State of Georgia is October 9th.

Dear Senator,

My name is Sheila O'Shea and I am a resident of the state of Georgia. I am writing to express my concerns about the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 2009, in the Minnesota Law Review, he made the following statement regarding presidential investigations:

"Even the lesser burdens of a criminal investigation — including preparing for questioning by criminal investigators — are time-consuming and distracting. Like civil suits, criminal investigations take the President's focus away from his or her responsibilities to the people. And a President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President."

Placing a man who will shape his decisions based on that metric on the Supreme Court would tear holes in the Constitution that could well never be mended. If we make the Executive Branch immune from the Judicial Branch, that opens the door to any demagogue who makes it to the presidency to run unchecked.

Imagine if Hillary Clinton had won the electoral vote and taken the presidency. Imagine if she'd placed justices of a similar bent to the Supreme Court. Imagine further what sort of things she could have done while immune from investigation.

I ask that you insist upon a judge who will not defang the Judicial Branch in the process of serving on it.

Sincerely yours,

Sheila O'Shea

I should probably state for the record that I do think far better of Hillary Clinton than I may have implied up there. I know that she's a major bogeyman for the right wing, Fox-News-watching crowd, so I figured I'd invoke that bogeyman to scare 'em a little into doing the right thing. I nearly always phrase my letters to my congresscritters in the most conservative way I can, in the hopes of actually being read all the way to the end.

So, after a bit of procrastination, I wrote to Senators Isakson and Perdue about the health care bill being worked on in the Senate. I paste it below, and urge anybody else in America to write their own letter as well.

Dear Senator,

I am a resident of Georgia and I would like to express my views on the current attempt at health care reform.

I am relieved to learn that the Senate will not be voting on the House bill that passed by a narrow margin, but instead will be creating their own bill. As your constituent, I would like to make my wishes known regarding the new bill.

Premiums should not be increased for people with pre-existing conditions. The healthy helping pay for the less fortunate is the way insurance works. Pre-existing conditions are not just the results of lifestyle choices, they are more often genetic or the result of injury. I have the pre-existing condition of bipolar II disorder, and no amount of lifestyle changes will rid me of it. Increasing the cost will put help with pre-existing conditions out of the reach of most people, and the fact that they technically have insurance available to them does not alleviate this.

Victims of crimes should not have the injuries they suffer be treated as pre-existing conditions.

Coverage for certain health conditions should be considered carefully before being removed from the list of mandatory coverage requirements. In my own case, I am naturally concerned with mental health. One in five Americans suffers from a mental illness each year. People with mental illness compose 90% of all suicides and suicide itself is one of the 10 most common causes of death in America.

If birth control for women is no longer to be covered, drugs to treat erectile dysfunction in men should also be dropped.

Medicaid and Medicare should not be cut. This is imperative. These programs serve people in desperate situations, including many of your constituents, and cutting their access to healthcare will, in many cases, condemn them to death.

In providing more coverage to the American people, I understand that the tax cuts you have planned will have to be reduced. However, the top tier of taxpayers paid a higher tax rate during the Reagan administration, and that was considered a prosperous era. Leaving the tax rate for them at the current levels will do no harm. You can emphasize the middle class in your tax reforms and boost the economy that way. The ACA has already helped the economy by drastically reducing the number of bankruptcies filed. Reducing the number of people who can afford health insurance will increase those numbers again.

I thank you for your time and your service to the state of Georgia and I hope you will consider my suggestions.

Sincerely,

Sheila O’Shea