CityRoom.BLogs.NYTimes.com – By Corey Kilgannon
Polling place foul-ups are not uncommon. But advocates say they are too common among a certain set of voters: transgender people who have changed their first names to match their new sex.
Voter registries often carry the transgendered voter’s birth name, which doesn’t match their newly adopted names. As a result, many of these voters are turned away at the polling place and often shy away from trying to correct the problem immediately and cast their votes, said Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, in Manhattan.