My ongoing battle with bureaucracy continues:
Being a French citizen, living in the United States, and having recently turned eighteen, I received an envelope in the mail describing in detail the procedure to follow so as to fulfill my patriotic duty and elect a (one, not several) representative for the entire Southern United States to the Council Representative Of French People Living In Places Other Than France. Titillated at the thought of exercising my newly acquired and much longed-for right, I eagerly turned the page to find the candidates' bulletins and little propaganda spiel.
And found one page.
Apparently, the vote is so hotly contested (or not, as the case would appear) that only one person bothered to run for the position.
Too overcome by the novelty of the whole process and too cheap to spend money on stamps, I logged on to the website in order to finish registration and cast my ballot online.
I was greeted by several Astutely Constructed but Rather Obnoxious and Numerous Ypsiloid MonikerS. Eventually, I ended up on a Portal Of Very Important Information, which instructed me to enter my passport number and electronic voter ID.
A message popped up: "The number you entered does not match your file. Please retry or use the number on your national identification card."
I retyped the code slowly.
"The number you entered does not match your file. Please retry or use the number on your national identification card."
I tried the number on the card.
"The number you entered does not match your file. Please retry or use the number on your national identification card."
A question mark blinked hopefully at me. I clicked it.
"After further consideration, we have decided that we cannot review your file. Please contact a representative from your consulate as soon as possible."
"Further consideration," my foot.
I decided that I'd wasted enough time and did not care enough about casting a ballot that would not make a difference anyway to undertake the long and tedious process of contacting the consulate.
Being a French citizen, living in the United States, and having recently turned eighteen, I received an envelope in the mail describing in detail the procedure to follow so as to fulfill my patriotic duty and elect a (one, not several) representative for the entire Southern United States to the Council Representative Of French People Living In Places Other Than France. Titillated at the thought of exercising my newly acquired and much longed-for right, I eagerly turned the page to find the candidates' bulletins and little propaganda spiel.
And found one page.
Apparently, the vote is so hotly contested (or not, as the case would appear) that only one person bothered to run for the position.
Too overcome by the novelty of the whole process and too cheap to spend money on stamps, I logged on to the website in order to finish registration and cast my ballot online.
I was greeted by several Astutely Constructed but Rather Obnoxious and Numerous Ypsiloid MonikerS. Eventually, I ended up on a Portal Of Very Important Information, which instructed me to enter my passport number and electronic voter ID.
A message popped up: "The number you entered does not match your file. Please retry or use the number on your national identification card."
I retyped the code slowly.
"The number you entered does not match your file. Please retry or use the number on your national identification card."
I tried the number on the card.
"The number you entered does not match your file. Please retry or use the number on your national identification card."
A question mark blinked hopefully at me. I clicked it.
"After further consideration, we have decided that we cannot review your file. Please contact a representative from your consulate as soon as possible."
"Further consideration," my foot.
I decided that I'd wasted enough time and did not care enough about casting a ballot that would not make a difference anyway to undertake the long and tedious process of contacting the consulate.
The patriotic duty will have to wait some time longer.
2 comments:
Absolutely brilliant!!
It ranks with Alice Kahn's "For a list of all the ways that technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three."
Wonderful! (And I'd never seen Acronyms elaborated upon in that way before. Not to self - must use at earliest opportunity...)
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