Issues casting votes have frequently come up during the last few elections, particularly for Black voters. However, you would think, as a politician yourself, you would be immune to certain problems.
It turns out, not so much, as the Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri found out while trying to cast his vote in the state’s primary elections on Tuesday.
According to the New York Times, Mayor Quinton Lucas was turned away from the very same polling place he had used for over 10 years after being told he “wasn’t in the system.”
Lucas tweeted about the irony of it all, linking a video he had shared earlier, encouraging people to get out to vote in the presidential primaries.
In a later tweet, Lucas quipped that him saying “that’s okay” was merely the Midwesterner in him, and that the issues he faced weren’t “okay.” They were problematic.
“If the mayor can get turned away, think about everyone else… We gotta do better,” he added.
Lucas, who spoke to the Times, said that he used a utility bill to confirm his identity, but after a back and forth with a poll worker said that he was not on the voter rolls.
He was later told that this was a mistake, he was on the voter rolls, and was turned away in error.
About an hour after he left the polling place he received a call from the election office, which told him that the poll worker had entered his name into the system incorrectly, putting his first name as his last name and vice versa, according to the Times.
“I get that mistakes happen,” Lucas told the Times. “We need to make sure we have a system where we don’t have mistakes.”