Her mail-in ballot didn’t arrive from Tarrant County, so she drove 20 hours to vote
Meredith Reilly drove nearly 1,400 miles to make sure her vote counted.
Reilly, 20, who grew up in Arlington and is now a junior at American University in Washington, D.C., drove 20 hours to Fort Worth to cast her ballot on Wednesday. She and a friend, who lives in Austin and also attends American University, rented a car and made the overnight drive to Texas, stopping only briefly at a Tennessee motel to sleep for a few hours.
“Neither of us were planning on coming home to Texas for Thanksgiving. We were going to stay in the Northeast,” Reilly said in an interview. “We just had to make sure our votes counted for the presidential election, as well as down ballot.”
Reilly had hoped to vote by mail. In August, she submitted by mail an application for an absentee ballot from the Tarrant County Elections Administration. But, for whatever reason, her request was either not received or not processed by the agency.
Election officials didn’t have specific information about Reilly’s mail-in ballot request. They said ballots cannot be sent by mail without an original, signed application — so, if a ballot application is lost in the mail, it cannot be completed.
“There is nothing we can do if the request does not get here,” Heider Garcia, Tarrant County election administrator, said in an email. “By law we have to have the original request in house before a ballot is issued.”
Reilly said she checked with the agency multiple times, but could find no record of her request for a mail-in ballot.
“About a month or so ago, I hadn’t heard anything back, so I checked the website and my request hadn’t been processed,” she said. “My name wasn’t in the system. Nothing.”
Reilly said one of her college friends, Zachary Houdek, had a similar problem with his hometown elections office in Travis County. So last weekend, the duo decided to rent a car together and drive home.
They left Washington Sunday afternoon and, after the brief overnight stop in Tennessee, arrived in Fort Worth on Monday afternoon.
Reilly graduated from Arlington Martin High School in 2018. Her family has since moved to west Fort Worth.
She is studying political science, and hopes to work in politics after she graduates.
Reilly said she doesn’t have classes on Mondays, so she didn’t miss any important school time during the long drive to Texas. While staying with her family in Fort Worth, she is participating in classes online.
She cast her ballot at Tarrant County College’s Trinity River Campus in downtown Fort Worth — one of Tarrant County’s 50 early voting centers.
Reilly said she and Houdek plan to drive back to the East Coast on Friday. They may have to attend some classes online while they drive, she said.
Her father, Jimmy Reilly, said he was surprised when his daughter called a few days ago and announced she would be coming home for a brief visit — and to vote.
“I’m so happy I get to see her,” Jimmy Reilly said. “And I’m really proud of the reason I am seeing her.”
This story was originally published October 28, 2020 at 3:01 PM.
