Government Screw-up - Election Edition

I feel compelled to rant about Los Angeles County and their pitiful job at handling the election/registration/voting by mail.  I will accept a modicum of guilt in that in theory I could have registered and applied to vote by mail as soon as I moved, rather than waiting until the deadline, but regardless, I met the deadline and so far they haven't.

What bothers me is that they set a deadline which in theory would suggest that they were capable of handling their responsibilities for all entries before this deadline.  For the option to vote by mail, the deadline was 7 days before the election.  So 8 days before the election I went online and registered to vote by mail so I was expecting my election materials to arrive sometime last week.  After getting nothing I checked the web for details and found out that they sent their last batch of vote by mail materials on Friday, 10/31 and "should be aware that there is likely not sufficient time to return them by mail."  Thanks LA, that was the whole point and now it's not possible.  Good job!

(and as a side note, the fact that voting by mail requires postage is total and complete BS.  If we have a right to vote then the one thing the post office as a government agency should be able to pick up for free is a damn ballot.  Imagine the homeless person who can write the street corner they live on to get a ballot delivered to them and they have to pay 42 cents to send that in.  Very stupid!)