this is why i support public radio

The weekend before last, Jim and I were coming in from some errands and we ran into the Green-Independent candidate for the one of the city's seats in the State House of Representatives.

I've never actually met a politican going door-to-door before; it seems somewhat quaint and old-fashioned, but then a) this is Maine and b) the dude was wearing Birkenstocks, so it wasn't really all that surprising.

What was a shock was that my name was not on his list of registered voters.

I registered in Maine when we moved here and I got my driver's license converted from Massachusetts. I voted in the Presidential election in 2004 -- I got the little sticker that said "I Voted!" and everything. Yes, I know I should have voted in any number of smaller municipal races since then, but I didn't, and besides, I was fairly sure that failure to do so would not result in being purged from the voter registration rolls.

Then, driving home from a proctoring event this afternoon, NPR taught me that, indeed, it just might.

Disappeared. Gone. Poof! No record of me, either in married or unmarried nomenclative form.

To be fair, it's not so much my lack of voting as the fact that, in trying to do the logical thing and consolidate the numerous lists of voters in the country, the various and sundry state offices didn't quite get it right. Maine probably never told Massachusetts to take me off their rolls, and so when duplicate registrations were eliminated, both of mine fell into the gaping maw of the Secretary of State's office.

Still. Bureaucratic idiocy notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure I still exist, and I'd like the state to reassure me of that prior to November 7th. I'd better get right on that.

And, hey, on the bright side -- now I'm voting under an entirely new name. No one will know where I've come from! I'll be the mysterious registered Independent. Isn't that always the best kind?