Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/06/vote-or-die.html
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Sunday morning, you should have seen the traffic jam outside the local Board of Elections. It was like Christmas at church. It’s a beautiful thing!
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one thing i will say about the county in which i reside. despite my state, texas, having some of the tightest i.d. requirements anywhere, once you have i.d. you can vote at any polling place within this county. i don’t know if that is true of every county in the state but it was, at least, a local option chosen by this county.
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Travis and Williamson county allow voting at any location according to NPR this morning.
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I vote by mail and love the fact that I have weeks to research little known candidates for offices and the various ballot measures at home at my own pace. I mailed it back and then a few days later, checked the county website to make sure is was received and counted. The whole country needs mail voting.
People—Please exercise you right to vote today. Thank you.
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i already voted, but out of curiosity i followed the link and while i was able to get information about contacting my town clerk and a link to my state’s webpage for their “bureau of corporations, elections & commissions,” i could find no information on where to actually go if one wanted to vote.
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I voted on Friday but i am seriously annoyed at Yahoo right now. On their homepage they have a thing prominently displayed that says “Will your vote count?”. That’s the kind of shit that discourages people to vote.
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FYI
They have a link on the page to report any voting issue and a nifty map:
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I will confess that i haven’t voted in midterms in TX before and was surprised that after i voted the machine did not print out a proof of how i voted. It’s the kind of documentation you want to physically have in case there are discrepancies that need to be verified.
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The idea behind that is to prevent your boss from firing you unless you provided proof you’d voted as s/he demanded. Any proof of choices would certainly be used this way, at least in urban centers with pervasive political machines (like Philadelphia, Boston or NYC for example).
I only had to vote for the least weevil in one race today! It felt almost like a victory.
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That’s illegal? None of their business if one voted and who you voted for. Also i would rather have proof of how i voted to ensure my vote counts in case there’s discrepancies with the vote counts
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Sure, when someone is literally forcing you to vote for their candidate, it’s pretty much always illegal.
When the state provides voter stubs it actively assists criminal ward bosses, factory owners, agricultural landholders, &etc. You can’t possibly have a free election without secrecy, and providing proofs which can be demanded by economic or social powerbrokers immediately obviates secrecy.
It would be interesting to have a system capable of providing fake stubs as well as real ones, so that only the voter could know which was which…
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Your vote fucking counts .
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Same reason there was concern over ballot selfies and why they are illegal in several states.
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Whether you voted or not is generally a matter of public record (sometimes including party affiliation if applicable in your state).
Who you voted for is not public information.
(Here’s more about it for Minnesota, detailing what information can be obtained by the public. It may vary somewhat by state.)
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Mine doesn’t. I only get a choice between two Democrats for Senate and a pathetic choice for governors. A Republican who knows nothing about California, and a Democrat that has numerous personal scandals that were a constant distraction when he was a mayor.
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Your vote still counts in the School Superintendent race, in the Insurance Commissioner race, and in a number of tax-related state measures. The top of the ticket is not the only important thing.
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It is literally the most important thing. That’s why we call it the top of the ticket.
The judicial votes are basically rubber stamped by voters, I spent a lot of time on it but I am confident I’m the exception.
The Superintendent race in CA (Tuck v. Thurmond) is close because both choices suck, you can see different newspapers endorsing different candidates and lots of misinformation being spread around. It’s been the dirtiest non-partisan campaign I’ve ever seen in my life. I left that blank, and I refuse to vote on it.
And you had a choice between a moderate and a progressive Democrat.
You had a choice between a former banker backed by billionaires and an African-American former teacher. Congratulations, all that money backing Tuck worked!
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