On Tuesday, October 7, I found out I’d be in New York City on Election Day. I wasn’t leaving St. Louis until Wednesday, October 15, but packing is packing, so I never found time to cast my absentee vote in person at the Board of Elections office.

This didn’t strike me as a big deal. When I voted absentee in the New Jersey elections in 1992, from what I recall, my mom picked up a blank ballot and mailed it to my college P.O. box. I colored in my circles and sent it in. I figured I’d ask one or another friend back in St. Louis to do the same for me.

But then I thought to call the local Barack Obama campaign office instead. They probably would send me a ballot. All those little videos on Barack Obama’s YouTube channel make it seem like these folks are so devoted to facilitating your vote, they’d cartwheel to your house and back if it would help. I could save one of my friends a trip.

So on Wednesday, October 22 – a full week after I’d arrived in New York, because unpacking is unpacking – I went to BarackObama.com and found the phone number for the St. Louis campaign office and dialed that. The woman who answered said I needed to deal directly with the Board of Elections. It took her a while to find the number. She had to yell at somebody across the room to finally get it.

Since that stuff with the Barack Obama office didn’t go as hoped, I decided to look up the St. Louis Board of Elections website before I called, to find out what I could find out. I found out that I needed to procure, fill out and return an absentee ballot application before I would be granted an absentee ballot. I could obtain this absentee ballot application either by mailing in a request, or by downloading the application off the Board of Elections website and then faxing it back. Or, I could dispatch a spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, brother, sister, mother-in-law, father-in-law, daughter-in-law or son-in-law to the Board of Elections to pick one up for me. I have none of those in St. Louis. I was suddenly worried about missing the deadline to return the application, which, as I read, was the Wednesday before Election Day, October 29, one week away.

The download-and-fax option therefore seemed best, except that I didn’t have a printer where I was staying, so I looked up the closest New York Public Library branch. I didn’t have a New York Public Library card, which I might need to use the their computers, nor the documentation required for a card, which would have included a New York City rent receipt, utility bill or apartment lease, or a New York state driver’s license, or a letter on letterhead stationery from a shelter for the homeless.

I threw myself at the mercy of the librarian, who easily agreed to help. I apologized by telling her that I’d never even heard of an absentee ballot application. She told me they are required in the state of New York as well, and then I started to feel very uninformed. (Why is it that voting rules and regulations and deadlines always register so fuzzily in the brain, no matter how many times I consult certain websites or ask more astute friends for help?)

On the morning of Thursday, October 23, I located a nearby copy shop and walked there to fax my absentee ballot application. It took a dollar and fifty cents and two tries, but the application went through OK and the fax machine printed out one of those “OK” confirmation sheets.

That afternoon, I called the Board of Elections office to confirm receipt of my application. The phone rang a long time, and then I was put on hold a long time while the person who answered went to check the machine. She came back and asked me what number I had faxed it to, and I read back the fax number that was on the application, which I had in my hand. She said they had not received it and recommended I fax it again.

On Friday, October 24, I returned to the copy shop in the morning and asked them to fax my application again. The man at the copy shop seemed very concerned and reassured me that his fax machine had elicited the “OK” confirmation sheet the day before. I said I know, but they told me to fax it again. He pressed his thumb up against the fax number where it was printed on the application and asked me if I was sure I wanted to resend it to that number. Go for it, I said.

This time it took about three tries, I think, but it went through. I was hoping the man might waive the buck-fifty this time, but when he didn’t I readily paid the charge. Then I walked back to where I was staying and dialed the Board of Elections office.

When I said why I was calling, the woman who answered said I needed to call the Absentee Department. I was given a different exchange to try, 3319. Neither a person nor a machine picked up. I dialed the main exchange again and this time was told to try 3230. I dialed both exchanges a few more times and then decided to give up for the day.

On Saturday, October 25, just to hedge my bets, I faxed the application a third time. I figured if their fax machines were overloaded during the week, I should fax over the weekend. Beat the Monday rush.

On Monday, October 27, I called the main exchange and was directed to the 3319 exchange, where again the phone was not picked up. I called back and interrupted the woman’s spiel about other exchanges, saying that nobody was picking up in the Absentee Department. “Ironic, no?” I asked.

She then asked me what number I had faxed my application to and I recited the fax number without reading it because at this point I knew it by heart.

She gave me a third exchange to try to reach the Absentee Department, 7138, but when I dialed it I heard one of those “the number you have dialed is not in service” recordings. I dialed the main exchange again and before I could say what happened to me when I tried 7138, a different woman said, “Well, try 7138.” Instead I tried 3319 and 3230 again but nobody picked up. I tried the main exchange again and this time I asked the woman who picked up, another different woman, what her name was.

Her name was Marilyn. I told Marilyn that I had tried the 7138 exchange and she interrupted whatever I was going to say next by saying, “Yes.” When I told her no, it wasn’t working, she offered to stay on the line until she could guarantee that someone would pick up in the Absentee Department.

The woman who picked up in the Absentee Department asked, “Can you call back in several days?” I said no, because the deadline for the Board of Elections to receive my absentee ballot application was only two days away. She said I would have to wait until she could step away from the counter, and when she did, she told me that they had not received my Saturday morning or my Monday morning fax.

“This is ridiculous,” I snapped. “I have spent ten dollars faxing this thing and a bunch of overdrawn cell phone minutes and at this point I feel like I have to go down to the post office and spend more money to mail it express.”

“We’re really busy here,” she insisted. “Election season is coming up.”

“No, election season is here, and this is what the Board of Elections exists to do. I don’t need you to work efficiently in March, I need you to work efficiently during election season. I don’t think Santa’s elves complain about it being December and having all these toys to pack, because that’s why you’re an elf.”

She asked me if I would like to be transferred to the supervisor.

The supervisor was very nice and I told him that while I was disappointed in his office, I would still like to cast my vote, but I was starting to feel dread about it, “like I’m going to miss my best friend’s wedding.” He asked for my name and then asked me if I live in the city, “because we get a lot of people calling us from the county, but we’re not their Board of Elections.” I told him I lived within spitting distance of City Hall, which is what I felt like doing to City Hall at the moment.

The supervisor put the phone down for a moment and quickly returned to tell me that he had my fax in his hand. I didn’t ask why the woman at the counter hadn’t been able to locate it a few minutes prior, I just said, “Good.” He said my absentee ballot would be posted that day.

About two hours later, I went to get my mail. It included an absentee ballot from the St. Louis Board of Elections.

The next day, Tuesday, October 28, I found a No. 2 pencil and colored in my circles. I went online to research the ballot initiatives and decided to abstain from one I found socioeconomically murky. The day after that, Wednesday, October 29, I rechecked my circles and then put the ballot in the provided envelope. I was glad it was one of those “No Postage Necessary if Mailed in the United States” envelopes. I had to sign and date the outside of the envelope and then have the outside of the envelope notarized, another thing I don’t remember doing in 1992.

The only thing I’d ever had notarized in my life was my first apartment lease, so I went to a real estate office. They told me to try an insurance office the next block down. The insurance office told me their notary guy was out, and I should try the Citibank branch the next block down. The woman at the Citibank customer service desk asked if I was a Citibank customer. I said no and started to grit my teeth, but the Citibank notary happened to be within earshot and said she’d take care of me anyway.

I had to wait a bit in a chair and then the notary called me over and got out her little notary stamp and started filling out my envelope. I leaned over the counter to watch. I was very, very excited.

When it had seemed Citibank might refuse my notarization, I was planning to charge back that as New Yorkers they should be dying to help me cast my vote for Barack Obama in a swing state. When the notary wound up helping me, of course I did not say it. But when she was done, I took it from her and said delightedly, “You just helped me cast my vote for Barack Obama in a swing state!”

She smiled faintly and then said, “Next.”