Voting and Mail - RV-Dreams Community Forum

dlynnt2 · RV-Dreams Community Member

Voting and Mail

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hi guys.. and welcome to the forums!

I believe that all of the answers to your questions are answered in this article we wrote, so I'll direct you there: www.technomadia.com/domicile

- Cherie

Alie and Jims Carrilite · RV-Dreams Family Member

We changed our residency to SD and signed up with Alternative Resources there. They are a mail forwarding service that also acts as your address. Ballots are cast by absentee ballot for the primary elections. Texas and Florida also have companies that do this.
If you decide to sign on with a company and change residency, be aware of the health insurance issue though when changing to these states.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Luckily Washington State is all vote by mail (100% absentee), so our ballots and voters guides come in the mail. We have moved a lot onto the internet, been on the road over 10 years and still get our mail forwarded every 3 to 4 weeks. Our mail goes to a relative's house, where we are treated as residents for all things, jury duty (which Diane gets to do in July), census, etc.

A side comment: Personally I think voting for primaries, etc., is more important than for the president. In many areas whomever wins the local majority parties primary has already won the general election. Off soap box.

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

In Texas you register to vote when you get your driver's license. If under 65, you can request an absentee ballot and the mail services know how to do this. If over 65, you can request to vote by mail without having to be out of town - which is what we do. And Escapees mail service lets you know the dates and where to send requests for all elections (including local) if you want to vote. Really hasn't been a problem for us.

The first question to ask yourselves is where do you want to live? You can use a relative's home, if they are willing to collect and forward mail for you, or you can use a mail forwarding service. 3 of the most popular states for fulltimers are Florida, South Dakota, and Texas because they all have mail forwarding companies and no state income taxes. But before you make the switch, you need to learn the requirements of each state and pay attention to things like health insurance, how estates are handled, jury duty, etc.

Barb

dlynnt2 · RV-Dreams Community Member

Oh my gosh! Thanks so much.

@Technomadia- I read chapters 1-7 yesterday, and today I read 8-15! Awesome, awesome, info!! I've started making a list of all the things we need to do that those articles triggered in my brain. Wow! There's a lot to do. But, the first thing I'm going to talk to my husband about when he gets home from work is setting a date! I'm still cautious about that, because I know that we are going to have truck and RV loan payments, so we have to be able to support ourselves. But setting that date is going to put a fire under me to get my internet businesses off the ground and making us money! Thank you again for such a great resource!

For everyone else, thanks for the insights! I already live in Texas, and my mother and father-in-law also reside in Texas. So keeping my residency here and using them to forward our mail makes the most sense right now.

Whew! Getting answers really does take some of the worry out of following our dream! Thanks again, everyone!

0nTheRoad · RV-Dreams Community Member

We chose Florida, we use GoodSam's mail forwarding. We registered to vote when we got our Drivers License, have already requested absentee ballots for the 2014 elections. Because the address we provides (mail forwarding address) is not a residential address they registered us at the courthouse, like mentioned before we are not eligible to vote in local municipal elections but can vote for State and Federal elections.