Voting with an X

Pre-stroke, Bob and I were never ones to miss an election day. But since the stroke, Bob has not voted mainly because it is a) difficult to get him a polling place and b) to complete an absentee ballot, the voter needs to be able to sign his/her name.

For over a year, Bob has been practicing signing his name. He can do it now, however, sometimes he writes the whole signature in cursive, other times he writes only his first name in cursive and prints the last name, other times he prints the whole dang thing. Then, occasionally, he gets half-way through and gets "stuck" not able to to remember how the rest of it goes....

And your signature on the ballot must match the signature on file with the Elections Supervisor or your vote will not be counted.

So, I asked Bob's occupational therapist if she could help Bob with his signature.

And she worked with him, for awhile. But still, though it is a little more consistent, he will often write certain letters backwards (especially "b" and "d"), or skip letters completely and still sometimes he prints the whole name instead of writing in cursive.

Finally, the OT called the Election Supervisor's office, who told her that Bob could sign his ballot with an "X" as long as it was submitted in this format, every time:


                                                                              HIS
                                            first name               X    last name            
                                            (printed)              MARK        (printed)

So today I send off this rather sad signature change to the Voter Registration office. But at least he will have a voice in the upcoming election. As long as he can make his X consistently the same!

I probably should have done this awhile back, but I didn't know it was possible to sign a ballot this way.