But Walpole is not happy he could not vote in Tuesday’s election. He said he was unable to get help from the registrar’s office, which initially sent an application to King William with his son’s address there. He asked the King William registrar to cancel his registration there because he lives in Richmond. He was unaware that he simply could have transferred residence.

Ultimately, he found help from an employee at the Department of Elections who filled out the registration application for him on Oct. 6. The employee told him to check back in three weeks, which would have been beyond the registration deadline of Oct. 17 (later extended to Oct. 21). But the employee had listed his address as “homeless” and left the mandatory address field blank. The application also didn’t respond to the question about prior felony convictions.

“We recognize that Mr. Walpole should have been able to rely upon the guidance and review of state elections personnel and strongly believe that this reliance should not prevent him from casting a ballot on November 8,” Commissioner of Elections Edgardo Cortés said in a letter to the ACLU last week.