Nancy Brown

My name is Nancy Brown. I live in Hopkinton, NH. I have voted in every election since I moved here in 1984. The last week of October 2024, I traveled to Virginia to help celebrate my granddaughter’s third birthday. My daughter was pregnant with her second child but was not due for another three weeks. She had had a difficult pregnancy with her first child, the three-year-old whose birthday we were celebrating. Knowing it was possible, perhaps even likely that my daughter would give birth early, I explored the possibility of requesting an absentee ballot. I discovered that to receive a ballot I would have to attest that I would be out of town on election day. Our plans were to return home before election day, so I could not truthfully attest that I would be out of town. Therefore, I dropped the idea. Well, as life would have it, on the day before we were to return home, my daughter’s doctors advised that the best course for her pregnancy was to induce labor within the next few days. My husband returned to NH, but I stayed to take care of my granddaughter while my daughter and her husband focused on bringing their second child into the world. I immediately got on the phone with our town clerk and, with her help, I began the process of obtaining an absentee ballot. That process included going to the state’s website, downloading and printing the application, signing it, scanning it and emailing it to our town clerk. Once our town clerk received the application, she mailed the ballot to my home address; my husband sent it overnight to Virginia, where I completed the ballot, signed all of the appropriate places, put everything in the appropriate envelopes and sent it back to my home address (overnight express) where my husband received and hand delivered it on the Monday just prior to election day to the town clerk. He signed a form attesting that I had asked him to deliver it on my behalf. There were many hoops to jump through and it cost over $150 to be sure the ballot arrived in a timely manner. Clearly voting is a right I cherish. Adding the additional steps of making a copy of my photo id to include with my ballot and having my application for an absentee ballot notarized would have added extra steps which could have delayed the process, making it impossible for me to cast my ballot. Thank you.