Speaking of the town in which I grew up...
...my dad phoned me last night to inform me that I've been summoned for jury duty in Starkville, MS. That's right, I've not lived there in over a decade and have been registered to vote in at least five different places in three different states since then, but they still have me on the voter rolls in Oktibbeha County. My parents say they've been trying to get me off the voter rolls there for years, as my name keeps turning up every time they go to vote. Evidently the county has been in no hurry to do so. In fact, I might be suprised to learn what I've been voting for in the years since my departure.
So I called the circuit clerk this morning and a very nice lady asked me to FAX her a request to be removed from the voter rolls and to include my Tri-Metro address to help prove my point.
This will be the second jury duty I've had valid reason to get out of in the last four months. The other was a local summons which I would have gladly served had the dates not fallen during a week I was otherwise contractually obligated to provide narration for a local dramatic production, a role for which I was actually being well-paid (a rarity in my acting career) and which no one else could have easilly stood in for me due to the timing involved syncing up with the other performers and musicians. Fortunately, a kindly-worded request letter explaining that I am a firm believer in doing my civic duty, but was contractually obligated otherwise and would be happy to turn up with a smile on any other week out of the year, but please not this one, found good favor with the judge. He let me go and they've not yet summoned me again.
2 comments:
Don't you have to register to be on the voters' list every year in the US ? In Britain, a form gets sent to each dwelling and you have to remove or add names, as appropriate. If you don't return the signed form, everyone at that address is wiped off.
Does this really surprise you? Of course it reminds me of the "parking ticket" in New Orleans that I had actually never received and the date on it was after we had moved to Virginia. It ended up being a result of the state of LA issuing the same tag number to two different individuals. I don't know if the city ever got their money, but I finally stopped getting threatening letters after about 3 years.
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