My son registered to vote in August on move-in day (a table set up near the Amazon pick-up office I think). He just found out by going to https://www.pavoterservices.state.pa.us/Pages/VoterRegistrationStatus.aspx that he is not registered after all. How many kids will go to vote and find out they are not registered? He is not the only student this has happened to.
Do you think it was a scam to get his info, or just some kind of problem within the student group voters registration work? I would contact the group that was running the registration or Penn if you can to let them know.
How long ago was this? Registration is often with a paper form, and it may not be entered yet. He should call the secretary of state’s office and ask them what to do.
August 22
Since then, I’ve heard of two other kids with the same issue.
So I called and the person I spoke to said the website is not up to date. To verify, call 215-686-1590.
I saw a group out there today on Locust Walk. Your son could go by and see if it’s the same group. They were a little ways east of the overpass where the Amazon pickup/drop off is located. Maybe he could get some explanation.
The group is Penn Dems. And the website is not updated, probably. Current Penn student
So… my U Penn student son, who registered to vote on Locust Walk in October, went in to Houston Hall to vote today and they didn’t have him registered. Apparently these Locust Walk groups didn’t really register the kids to vote! He is very disappointed to be shut out of his first voting experience!!
This is disappointing as a parent to say the least.
@runswimyoga So sorry to hear that your S will miss such an important event. I would encourage you to advise your S to bring this up with the Office of Student Life to hopefully bring to relegation to these groups to help prevent such things in the future.
That’s so disappointing.
My D is a member of PennDems and her PA voter registration didn’t come through until yesterday! But I can assure you the student organizations did their due diligence. She had to keep calling to be sure it went through.
Wow, that’s terrible. So disappointing for these students. Ya know, I had my doubts about that process – not that that there would be anything nefarious going on, but just wary of handing over the process to a third party (no pun intended). My D goes to another university and wanted to register in that state. She saw voter-registration tables set up on campus a few months ago, but I advised her to just get the form and bring it in person to the county clerk herself (gave her Uber fare). That way she’d know that her paperwork actually arrived and she’d know on the spot whether her proof of residency and everything else was in order. Then I advised her to look out for her voter card in the mail, which came just last week.
@Brantly that was smart to do! I showed him this thread when it originally started and told him to go online or call and check to make sure his voters change went through. Apparently he didn’t. He said he didn’t receive anything in mail.
I think I know what happened after grilling him about it. He said he told them he was registered in another state. They told him “well fill out this new voters registration form and it will automatically transfer it to PA for you”. He said they needed his drivers license number and his dorm address.
He has an out of state drivers license!! In looking up PA laws today , you must give a PA drivers license number or the last 4 digits of your SS number to register. The person registering him must not have realized that they could only use PA licenses… and just wrote in his out of state DL number. My freshman son had no clue that it had to be a PA DL. (and I found out, if he did register in PA he would have had to switch his DL to PA within 60 days…)
He just assumed he was all good bc the Penn person said he was. Its on him though, bc I told him about this CC thread! Its just a shame, bc if he knew he wasn’t registered in PA, he would have asked for an absentee ballot in our state. I guess live and learn.