Voting and Parkinson’s

Of course each of our state is different on how the voting process works. Even in the county where I live in upstate New York, Steuben, our town of Caton caucuses for the Democratic candidates and the Republicans have a primary election.

We know that one symptom of Parkinson’s is t hat your handwriting gets smaller and/or varies through the day with the medicine cycles. When you vote, in person, or file an application for an absentee ballot they are supposed to check your signature against the one on file. How many year’s have you been in your current home? How old is that signature??

Pam Maldonado of the Palm Beach League of Women Voters asked to discuss this with her. I explained the Parkinson’s end and she provided the information to avoid or fix this problem. In Florida, you get a new voter registration form and at the topic there is a checkbox for New or UPDATE, you check UPDATE and explain that you are updating the signature and you are set.

New York is a little more complicated , I called to several Board of Elections sites, most were probably closed. The best answer I could get was “Well you can always just make an X and have it witnessed” Of course in our Town of Caton, it’s small enough that between the 4 or 5 pole workers at least one of them knows every person in the town.

I know my signature is “off” sometimes but when I go to vote I make an extra effort to make sure it matches.