Good luck, America!
Just have to dump it in a drop box at the library when I go to lunch (I could also put it in the mail, but while I trust the USPS, I prefer not to leave the postmarking to chance since Iām doing this on the day).
Thatās interestingāin Minnesota it has to actually arrive by Election Day, not just be postmarked Election Day. (Couldnāt going by postmark be weird in very close races, if ballots might trickle in for a few days after Election Day? But on the other hand, since one never knows how long the mail might take, if itās postmarked by Election Day then you know youāve voted.)
I did not vote for any Republican candidate.
For those outside of the US that may think that voting is just a simple Democrat/Republican/Other choice, today I could vote for:
- 2 Congress seats
- 1 state seat and 9 state offices
- 23 judicial posts
- 2 county offices, including the sheriff (head of county police)
- 11 state measures
- 1 county measure
- 2 city measures
For a total of 42 choices. Some of the measures up to vote are really tricky, and the political advertisement is so biased that doesnāt help with making a wise choice.
Yes. It took almost a week before we knew the outcome of the last mayoral election in my city, because it was a close race and a large number of mail in ballots were cast.
Washington is an all-vote-by-mail state, so ballots are assumed to be outstanding on election day rather than treated as early votes that need to be delivered in time to be counted with everyone elseās in-person votes. Final results arenāt certified until several weeks after the election (Spokane County certifies on the 27th according to their results-tracking website) to ensure that all outstanding ballots have had a chance to arrive, though with modern statistical modeling, most races can be informally called much earlier than that. Itāll be interesting to see how soon the WA-5 House race gets called.
As I skipped a grade I didnāt vote till college. Not as big a deal skipping a class or two then sadly.
Just got done. There were no lines-- itās rare to see lines in my district. But it did seem busier than it was during the primary.
LOLZ!
Although that does rather depend on maintaining the democracy.
I did vote, as stated in more detail in the Election 2018 thread.
Itās a little too late, but I always exhort people to vote in nonpartisan and judicial elections. Your school boards matter, and the courts and district attorneys hella matter. Depending on where you live, state supreme courts positions are not lifetime appointments.
Voted last week to beat the crowd, as usual, and was pleasantly surprised that there was a bit of a crowd even on second day of early voting. Probably the only circumstance where Iām happy to wait in a longer line.
The only reason we had a line down here was due to the 2-sided, dang-near full ballot and ballpoint pens instead of the usual felt-tip markers for the scan-tron ballots. The fill-in boxes were way too big to scribble in quickly with a ballpoint. WTF?
Nonetheless, done.
I did, and while my district doesnāt have any cool stickers, one of the poll volunteers was made up in full drag, replete with beard and mustache.
No lightning, and I didnāt die before I got to vote; thanks.
I cannot get over how stunning Conchita Wurst is.
She really is.
The queen who was working the polling place had a goatee and was an ombre blonde, but she was rocking the fabulous gold l lamƩ gown.
Yay!
(And not just because you voted, though thatās great news too. )
Yeah, āI only care if you survive long enough to voteā has got to be the most ominous encouragement for proactive civic engagement that Iāve ever received.
I really donāt understand this queuing up to vote thing. I mean I see it in āfragileā democracies in far away places on the telly. Why are people queuing up in the US? I walk up to the polling booth after work and walk in to vote. There is no queue. Why would there be? There are adequate numbers of polling stations and adequate numbers of people staffing them. We donāt have a holiday here for it but they open at 7 in the morning and close at 9 in the evening usually (I think they are only required by law to be open for 12 hours but I donāt recall them closing before 9).
The population density of, say, Hoboken, is 40,000 people per square mile. What is the population density of your town? Our smallest national representation unit, the house district, averages 760,000 people per district. How big are your comparable districts?