I know, it’s weird, it’s mid-August — but we’re having a primary right now. It’s been buried in the news and won’t get much attention because there aren’t any presidential candidates on the ballot, but it’s still important to turn out and do your civic duty. Stephanie has some recommendations for who good smart sensible liberals should vote for.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
But but but… politics is all just opinion, and therefore shouldn’t ever be mentioned by
liberalatheists/skeptics! Don’t try to tell me what to do, or insist that I have values!is there going to be a sneaky marriage definition vote or is it just voting for candidates? i spose i gotta check it out.
robb: Just candidates. The marriage amendment will be on the November ballot, along with the Voter ID amendment that has no provisions in place for actually implementing it, should it pass.
As a recent transplant to MN, it’s going to take me years to understand how elections work here. Open primaries, no write-ins, same-day registrations, no provisionals, canvassing for presidential nominees? It’s chaos! LOL
Ah well, my absentee ballot was turned in.
Socio-gen, as a slightly less recent transplant myself, I can tell you that you get used to it quickly. It’s chaos, but a very relaxed chaos.
Harrerugah! At the end of this congressional term I’m officially out of Michele’s district! (And I wish the same for everyone.)
We here in Lake Havasu have this one pegged. The farther down the scale you get, the less information there is available about what the candidates actually stand for. It took me like 30 minutes just to find that one city council person was probably Tea Party, and another sounded enough Republican that I could scratch them off the list. And, that was two people out of a list of 8, of which I needed to vote for 3.
To me it’s like choosing between Catholic and Protestant.
Can’t I vote “none of the above”?
Sassafras: It’s just a different kind of chaos than what I was used to in PA. I was a minority inspector and then judge of elections for my precinct and I had all the laws and whatnot down pat. When I first moved out, I thought I’d jump right in, since most places are desperate for poll workers, but I need to learn the laws and regs better before I can be useful.
ottod – I considered myself in Betty’s district as soon as they finalized the maps. Voted for her today!
Socio-gen – what’s so confusing? Primaries for everything except president, you can vote in the primary for any party but only one party, caucus for president, and some cities have ranked voting for city offices.
For my races in Columbia Heights, the MN Sun had brief interviews/bios for each of the local candidates which came in handy.
Done and done!
Voting accomplished–I was NOT going to be kicking myself for not voting if somehow Keith Ellison lost to the carpetbagging slaver from West Virginia. (We had a pseudo-candidate in the Democratic primary who was only running so he could show gory anti-abortion ads. But occasionally, someone like that can win if too many people think there’s no need to vote for the good guy since he couldn’t possibly lose!
Fortunately Ellison won easily.
ImaginesABeach: It’s not the voting that’s confusing; it’s the behind-the-scenes, running a polling station stuff. A lot of the procedures/rules are very different and takes time to learn all the ins and outs.