NYC asks Tim Robbins, angry lost voter, to make voter PSAs
With all the superficial distractions like a historic vote electing the nation's first African American president, you may have missed a really important story:
How actor Tim Robbins will do almost anything to cast his ballot. (See photo.)
He apparently had difficulty voting in one lower Manhattan precinct on Nov. 4 because his name wasn't on the voters list, so he rejected a paper ballot and called an official a "corrupt scumbag" and sued immediately to let him pull the lever anyway, which he did.
Thank goodness for Tim. And America!
Well, as it turns out, Robbins was not on that precinct's list of voters because Timbo is registered in another precinct. Oh, never mind.
But now, in a clever little bit of institutional PR pointed out by our pals over at TMZ.com, New York City's Board of Elections has asked the angry actor to help it with some public service ads.
"We also recognize and applaud that passion Mr. Robbins exhibited with regard to his election day experience," a board announcement says.
"Therefore, to harness the passion of Mr. Robbins, and to further the purpose of the NYC BOE, we hereby extend our invitation to Mr. Robbins to join the NYC BOE to produce voter-participation service announcements."
TMZ has the full story here.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Don't miss a single new Ticket item. Register here to have alerts sent to your cellphone. Precincts don't matter here.
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
Subscribe to this Blog
He probably is a little embarassed, but my polling place changes between to polls almost every election, so I have to look it up each time. Go easy on Tim, we all were a little nervous after seeing Uncounted and Recount.
Posted by: annaaa | November 19, 2008 at 10:28 AM