At 07:41 PM 11/1/02, Julia Thompson wrote:
"John D. Giorgis" wrote: > > At 11:10 AM 11/1/2002 -0600 Julia Thompson wrote: > >I went and did early voting this morning. > > Out of curiosity, given the events of the last two years, did you at all > consider the risk that your candidate might die between now and Tuesday, > thus invalidating your vote? In other words, in your mind, does the > benefit of voting early outweigh the risk of losing your vote - or did you > simply not assess this risk?The risk of something coming up between now and closing of the polls on Tuesday that might prevent me from voting on Tuesday weighed more heavily in my calculations than the risk of the death of a candidate between now and then. Two years ago, I had hellacious morning sickness. On one of my better days, we went and did early voting, which was just as well, as I was having a bad day on election day.
On Election Day in 1992, two out of three cars were on the fritz, and the other was in use, so I had to walk to the polling place I was assigned to then (a National Guard armory). On the way, though, I got a bonus: as I was passing a clump of trees and high grass, a skinny little black-and-white cat limped out and adopted me by sitting in front of me and meowing and refusing to let me pass . . .
With that experience relatively fresh in my mind, I figured early voting was a better option. Additionally, my re-registration at the new address never was processed by the county, so it was either vote early on this side of IH-35, or drive 35 minutes on election day to cast my ballot. As *Dan's* re-registration *was* properly processed (highly irritating, as both of them had been together in the postal clerk's hand last time I saw them!), the only way for us to both go together to vote was to do early voting. > >I voted for at least 1 candidate of each party represented on my > >ballot. (And I did a write-in.) :) (No, there were no Reform Party > >candidates, just Rep.s, Dem.s, Lib.s and Greens.) > > Also out of curiosity, and I will try to say this as nicely as possible - > do you think that it is a point of merit that you distributed your votes > across four different parties? Actually, this is two questions: > 1) Do you consider it absolutely more good to have voted for candidates of > four different parties, than to have voted for candidates of only three, > two, or one party? I consider it better than voting straight ticket, anyway; my impression of "straight ticket" voters is that they depend on a political party to make all their decisions for them. I know that isn't fair, as many of them vote in the primary.
I have on occasion found that I have voted a straight ticket without setting out to do so: just that the best/least objectionable candidates all turned out to be in one party . . .
Mostly, I find it eclectic. > 2) Did you mention this because you expect people to look more favorably > upon you for having voted for candidates of four different parties? More an announcement that you can't stick me in any sort of political box and expect me to stay in it.
Despite occasional requests for contributions from parties with offers to make me a card-carrying party member, I remain unaffiliated with any party, as I don't agree completely with any of them. Like Julia, apparently, I try to learn about the candidates and pick the one that I agree with most -- or at least find least objectionable.
> I'm really not trying to be rude - but am trying to make an honest > assessment of your value judgements. > > >If you are registered to vote in the US, be sure you vote on Tuesday > >(unless you do early voting like I did). I don't care about *who* you > >vote for; even if you're in my precinct (which I don't think anyone is, > >unless there's a lurker living close by), or just in my state, and you > >vote against every single candidate I voted for, you should take > >advantage of your right to vote and have some sort of say in who > >represents you in your government. > > Allow me to second that with a reservation. If you live in the United > States, please take the time to learn about the candidates in Tuesday's > election and vote. And if you live in the United States have learned > nothing about the candidates in Tuesday's elections by Tuesday, please do > not vote in the elections. One of the reasons my voting was so varied was because I looked at all the candidates, their records, their positions, and found that I was most in agreement with a Green in one or two cases, most in agreement with a Democrat in a number of others, most in agreement with a Republican in some others, and most in agreement with a Libertarian in one or two. (The write-in was in the governor's race. I'm disgusted by the whole campaign to date; later, I heard on the radio that both major-party candidates had pulled their really negative ads, maybe because they were backfiring, and had only run positive spots today. Well, they blew it as far as *my* vote went -- since people are voting early in record numbers around here this year, they should have pulled the negative stuff sometime *last* week when the trend was starting to become apparent....)
Yes, I feel like saying "A pox on both their houses" . . . except that these days, someone would probably take it as a terroristic threat . . .
Back in either 1980 or 1984, IIRC, I read a "get out the vote" editorial which encouraged people to vote by saying that one of the two major party candidates would be elected, that "None of the above" was not an option. My immediate reaction was "Why not?" Maybe we could put "None of the above" on the ballot, and if "None of the above" got more votes than any of the candidates, they'd have to find other candidates. (No, I don't know exactly how that would work. Any suggestions?)
> Yes, I asked certain people not to vote. > > JDG - Who really isn't trying to be a contrarian just for the sake of > being a contrarian. Most of the people with whom I talk government/politics here try to educate themselves at least a little and go vote. The major exception to that is someone who has looked at various candidates and formed opinions, but has said she probably won't vote. (She didn't get the address change to the county the last time she moved,
Once or twice I couldn't vote because circumstances dictated that I had to move after the deadline for registering at the new address, and it didn't seem fair to try to vote in the old district since I was no longer living there. (This was in a local election, not a national one. And I think it may have been a primary, and I was able to register to vote in the general election.) And a little while back, I went to the place where I had been voting (a church) only to find that no one was there: apparently they had changed locations and I had not received a notice.
and doesn't know where her voter registration card is.)
My card, with the location of the polling place for next Tuesday's election, is sitting on the dashboard of the car, where it has been since it arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago so there wouldn't be _any_ confusion this time . . .
I've run into a number of people
over the years, though, that complain about how government is run, have
definite opinions as to what *ought* to be done -- and don't vote! I'm
sick of bellyaching from people who refuse to cast the ballot that might
make at least a *miniscule* amount of difference, that's why I encourage
people to vote.
Also, a number of people don't even bother to register. If they're not
going to bother to *register*, even, then yeah, they're probably not the
sort to educate themselves about elections, and so probably shouldn't
vote anyway. But they've already taken care of *that*. :)
Julia
who doesn't want to hear a damn thing more about Perry or Sanchez for a
couple of days, but will probably fail to avoid their ads :P
Can hardly be any worse than our gubernatorial race between Siegelman and Riley: if even a fraction of what they have said about each other in their ads is true, they should probably both be in jail (but I suppose that's true in just about every race in every state, except those where there is no contest). And they have apparently spent together nearly $23 million on the campaign for an office for which the total salary for the next four years is less than $1 million . . .
sorry if that was too verbose
Well, now you have my 2� worth to make it even longer . . .
(I wish I had a share of that $23 million being spent to sling mud.)
--Ronn! :)
I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon.
I never dreamed that I would see the last.
--Dr. Jerry Pournelle
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