Homeless, can I vote in Pennsylvania?

August 2, 2024 7:35 PM

So I'm nomadic/straight up homeless. I sort of use my mom's address in Texas as 'mine' as required. But I'll be staying in one place in Pennsylvania August through October. Can I register to vote in the Presidential election?

Howso? What do I need? Hope so! Really would like my vote to count for once.

posted by Jacen to Law & Government (12 answers total)

When I was registering people to vote in Philadelphia, I was told they didn't have to have a permanent address--people who were genuinely homeless could even list an intersection. So you can use your temporary place of residence as long as you have been a resident for at least 30 days prior to the election. You can use as ID a Pennsylvania driver's license, Pennsylvania ID# (don't know what that is) or last four of your SS#.

However, the election is in the beginning of November, so if you are leaving in October that messes things up.
https://www.usvotefoundation.org/state-voter-information/pennsylvania has a lot of information.
posted by Peach at 7:39 PM on August 2 [3 favorites]

Here's a page with a voter registration form you can mail in. https://vote.pa/info/register/
posted by Peach at 7:47 PM on August 2

NCH's You Don't Need a Home to Vote campaign's 2024 Pennsylvania voting-rights info card.

(You use your mother's Texas address for anything "required;" please check that registering to vote in PA doesn't negatively impact your rights/legal status/benefits/etc. based on or tied to the Texas address. Voting-rights info card for Texas, just in case.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:33 AM on August 3 [2 favorites]

Since Chicago's online voter registration has a clear and easy to use process to register to vote if you're unhoused or don't have a permanent home, I googled "register to vote in Pennsylvania". And sure enough:

5. Your address
Enter the address of your residence. You may not use a P. O. Box address.
If you live in a rural area or are homeless and do not have a street address or a permanent residence, please use the link at the top of the page to print a blank voter registration application, use the map on the printed form to show where you live or spend most of your time, and mail it to your county voter registration office.

So, it looks like they make you jump through more hoops (printing? mailing?? in this economy???) which is annoying, but I have every confidence a librarian at your nearest public branch can help you with this.

tl;dr Voting is so cool! Yes you can vote if you're homeless!! Encourage everyone you know to check their eligibility to vote, no matter their situation!
posted by phunniemee at 4:30 AM on August 3 [3 favorites]

I think this is less about registering transient populations and more about violating the spirit of mail-in voting process. You already know you aren’t going to be located in-state on Election Day. It’s one thing to send in a ballot in September and find out later your job needs to send you across the country next month, and another to already know you’re going to be gone. That’s the difference between good and bad faith.
posted by Huggiesbear at 5:27 AM on August 3 [1 favorite]

I am an election judge in Minneapolis. A homeless person there can vote using same-day registration if they come to the polls with someone already registered in that precinct who can vouch for where they slept the previous night. I am sharing this not because it is necessarily helpful to anyone who doesn't live in Minnesota but to emphasize that these procedures vary significantly state by state. That said, the whole issue of mail-in ballots in this situation is not something I can speak to.

I have added NCH's You Don't Need a Home to Vote page to the Voting Support wiki page; thank you for sharing it, Iris Gambol.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 7:13 AM on August 3 [5 favorites]

Iris Gambol's point is an important one. Check to make sure registering to vote in PA doesn't affect benefits/identity in TX.
posted by Peach at 7:21 AM on August 3 [1 favorite]

It’s impossible to answer this question without knowing what state you’re going be in after Pennsylvania. Your mother’s address isn’t relevant since you don’t live there.
posted by rhymedirective at 11:26 AM on August 3

Maybe my logic is faulty, but it seems to me that the issue is not where you will be on election day with early voting, but rather where you are when you vote. While you may have plans to be elsewhere on election day, plans change, things come up, etc.

You get one vote. If you are living in PA when you vote early, ok, but do not say drive to northern AZ and vote in person on election day then hustle up to NV across the state line and vote there. If you legit are living in PA when you vote early and follow all of their rules, vote there, but do not vote the Chicago way, more than once. (I say that lovingly as a former decade long resident of Chicago (43rd Ward)).

IANAL, IANYL and I am not an election judge/official.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:40 PM on August 3

The main thing people get in trouble re: election fraud, is for voting in more than one place in a single election.

If you are a U.S. citizen and vote only once in any given election, you're going to be in good shape.

The other thing is, once you have lived in Pennsylvania for 30 days then you have residency there for the purpose of voting. So that allows you to register to vote there.

Once you are registered to vote there, that is your place to vote - until you are able to establish residency somewhere else and register to vote in that new place.

So, assuming you've lived in PA for 30 days, you register to vote there.

(For the nitpickers: Note that the actual wording is "Be a resident of Pennsylvania and the election district in which you want to register and vote for at least 30 days before the next primary, special, municipal, or general election." This definitely applies to you if you have lived or will live there for a total of 30 days before the next election. Not that it does NOTE say "Be a resident . . . for at least 30 days immediately prior to an upcoming election." If it DID say that then it would make absentee voting of all kinds illegal. That is clearly NOT the intent of the requirement. If you have lived in that place for 30 days then you have established residency for voting purposes and it literally does not matter at all whether you happen to be in that jurisdiction on election day or not - nor does it matter if you're going for a week before that or a couple or a few weeks before. Example: I just voted in our primary and have been out of state continuously for more than a month now! Egads! I won't be back until a while after the election if I bother to return at all. Who cares! That is where I am registered to vote and that is where I am voting.)

If you're not going to be in PA on voting day, just get an absentee ballot and submit that. That is exactly what absentee ballots are for. Or vote early, if that is a thing in your jurisdiction.

Now if you happen to going next to a place that allows instant registration - for a person who has moved to that area in just the last couple of weeks - then go ahead & register and vote there and in that case (important!) absolutely do not vote in PA.

The point is, if perchance you can move to a new location and get registered to vote in that location in time for the upcoming election, then it is fine to vote in that new place. But far more likely, you won't be able to do that. And in that case your previously established voter registration in PA is still valid - and so you can and should vote there, where you are registered to vote.

People who are flip-flapping about "you are intending to move out of state by election day" and all that are frankly full of it. The right to vote is one of the most important rights you have. If you are a U.S. citizen you are allowed to exercise it.

There are all sorts of strange situations people find themselves in - from a trucker who is "living" in maybe 2 dozen states over the course of any given month to people with one or more seasonal or vacations homes they live in for months on end to students who "live" at university in a different state for most of the year but still vote in their home district. Because they consider it their home - AND are registered to vote there.

As long as you meet the residency requirements (live in the state for 30 days or more, in this case) and vote in one place only all is well.

You can and should vote.
posted by flug at 2:14 AM on August 4 [1 favorite]

I would also say, if you return to your parent's house in Texas periodically at all, or consider it a home base in any way (which obviously you do - you're using it as your main contact address) then registering and voting there is a good possibility as well.

Point is: Don't register & vote in both places. Pick one.

Your situation is no different from a student away at school. You can vote either in your established home that you consider to be your main "home base" and that you return to periodically OR you can vote in the jurisdiction where you are at school, if you can establish residency for voting purposes there. Either is fine and legal. Just pick one.

Making a decision about where your "real" home is, is something that everyone who is mobile in this way has to do. That's not voter fraud.

It only becomes fraud if you vote in TWO or more places. Don't do that.

No, I am not making any of this up. Here is a page from the U.S. Voting Foundation that outlines pretty much everything I've said here.
posted by flug at 2:28 AM on August 4 [1 favorite]

then go ahead & register and vote there and in that case (important!) absolutely do not vote in PA.

They said they want their vote "to count, for once". I doubt they plan to register in a state besides PA unless it was also a swing state.
posted by Huggiesbear at 10:24 AM on August 4