Community: Voting Day

~ Laura

Election Day is like the political science prom. My dress might be a little shabby, but I’m still going to the dance. I’ll be binge-watching news and making rude comments all day here and on Twitter.

Did you vote yet? What do the polls look like? Busy?

Published by Laura

21 thoughts on “Community: Voting Day”

  1. We live in St Louis County , MO (not St Louis City, which is its own entity right next to us). Most populous county in the state, right at a million. Mostly Democratic. Polls not too crowded at 6:30 this morning-steady stream in and out, about 15 folks in line at s as my one time. We had a lot of early voting this year, so I wouldn’t expect the long lines we’ve had in the past. This is first election that requires photo ID. Republicans in the majority of the state, so statewide elections usually a foregone conclusion. I hope at least our state rep will be a Democrat.

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  2. In Colorado they mail your ballot to you about a month before the election so you just fill it out and either mail it or drop it into a drop off box (like a giant mailbox). So I never go to the polls
    However news says that Democrats and voters over 65 have been casting the most ballots here ahead of Election Day.

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  3. This was my college student’s first time voting, although she was eligible in 2020. Last night we found our voter ID cards, she made sure she had her ID, we perused a voting guide, and we decided to go right after dropping off her younger siblings for school this morning.

    We got to the polls this morning at around 8 AM at a downtown convention center in a moderate-sized city in Texas. There was a line, but lots and lots of volunteers. We had at most a 5 minute wait. There seems to be a new law where you can vote in any local precinct, which should make voting a lot more convenient for many people. The official website FAQ answered the question, can’t people vote more than once? They explained that this is impossible due to the digital system. There were a lot of uncontested races on the ballot.

    My college student has told me (without any prompting) that she was most excited to be able to vote against Beto. That’s also what got me out of the house in 2018! My second kid turns 18 in just over 4 months. If all goes well, he, his sister, and I will all be voting in the primaries in 2024. I have actually never voted in a Republican primary, but recent history has demonstrated that it is a very good idea to do so!

    The local DA race involved a guy who I was thrilled to vote for, as he had been the victim of the dirtiest radio attack ad I have ever heard in my life. His Republican primary opponent had insinuated that this candidate was the best friend of pedophiles and wife beaters (or something along those lines) because he had worked as a defense attorney. I probably should have gotten out and voted against the perpetrator in the primary, but I had least had the satisfaction of voting for the victim in the general election today. The guy I voted for is a dad at my kids’ school and I’ve seen the campaign car at school many times.

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  4. Voted, filling out my ballot while watching Tommy & Tuppence on Britbox. I hate voting for judges and I hate voting for “maintain” votes on legislative actions (about taxes, but, I think, maybe about spending, too). They are advisory, which makes them worse. I want my representative to balance the needs of the state and take responsibility, not expect post-hoc approval of their actions (except getting re-elected when they run again).

    My voting fatigue (a zillion judges, maintain votes, . . . .) added to my inducement to vote against rank-choice voting for the city (I don’t want to spend time ranking candidates).

    Ballot hasn’t been dropped off yet (we are supposed to be old enough that we get our ballots turned in early, but instead we’re like the 20 somethings, and always manage to wait until the last minute, even though it has a cost of people calling us to remind us to vote (which stops when our ballot is logged)

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    1. I think it is one of the most beautiful things in WA state that we get to vote at home (and we have a lot of beauty here).

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    2. I watched the David Walliams and Jessica Raine version of Tommy and Tuppence and was not impressed (though it was fun to mock Tommy),. so am delighted to hear about this Britbox version.

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  5. I was just watching one of my Russian-language youtube shows and I saw a really interesting example of how hard it is to understand politics in foreign countries.

    A smart Russian guy (Igor Yakovenko) was sharing exit poll information and giving precise seat counts for the House of Representatives and the Senate. When his guest (Andrei Piontkovsky) came on, he explained that the US exit poll information is completely unreliable at this point. I stopped listening to write this up, but of course–it’s 11:13 AM where I am and 9:13 AM on the West Coast. Even with early voting, the US has barely started voting today.

    Yakovenko said (more accurately) that Russian state media has been extremely open in pinning a lot of hopes on Republican victory and on Trump’s return to the US presidency. Prigozhin (the head of the infamous Wagner Russian mercenary group) was recently claiming to have been interfering with the current US election. Some problems with that plan: a) the first rule of election interference club is we don’t talk about election interference b) Trump isn’t on the ballot and the earliest he could be president would be January 2025 c) new members of Congress only start work in January 2023 d) there’s presumably a lot of stuff in the aid pipeline e) lend lease f) it’s not clear that a differently constituted Congress will yield different results on aid to Ukraine.

    But, other than that, it’s a great plan!

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    1. I most recently noted the issue of judging foreign elections watching the US coverage of the Israeli election (which, frankly, the US should have more expertise in, than in a random country). I think one deep flaw is to analyze the results based on the effect on US interests, which are of little note to the country running the election (true in Israel, but also the UK and India). And, of course, all those countries make the same mistakes when analyzing US elections.

      (And, that’s even without the technical differences, with parliamentary systems, proportional representations, calling elections . . . .)

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    1. That seems so hard that it makes me tired from over here. Our ballots were dropped off at the dropbox that’s less than 5 minutes away.

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    2. I also got to sit down while voting. I think I would be a terrible voter if we didn’t have mail in voting, but maybe I’m thinking too little of myself.

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      1. bj said, “I also got to sit down while voting. I think I would be a terrible voter if we didn’t have mail in voting, but maybe I’m thinking too little of myself.”

        In all honesty, I probably should do local elections with a lot of no-party candidates as a “take-home.”

        I was definitely winging it last time when there were a bunch of non-partisan school board races.

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      2. Meanwhile, we are looking at changing our current mail-out voting (for local government elections) to return to in-person ones [not decided, just being investigated] – due to the chronic low voting rate.
        It seems as though many voting papers arrive and go straight in the rubbish bin….

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  7. I worked as a poll watcher for about 6 hours today, which is nothing compared to the regular workers, who start at 5 a.m. and go until after the polls close at 7. Here ach precinct gets 1 D, 1 R observer (if they can staff it), and I was in a polling place with 3 precincts. Quite busy – one poll worker said busier than the presidential elections.

    In my precinct I was paired with our mayor (who I know from various community things, because it’s a small town) and then with a very nice and very chatty woman who told me everything about her health history, her taste in mysteries (a mutual interest), her farm, and her family’s military service. I would pick the two of them over McCarthy and McConnell to run the Republicans in Congress, in a heartbeat.

    No controversies here; it was a pleasant experience. But I dread the results and the followup, in a way I never used to dread even the results I didn’t like.

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    1. af said, “No controversies here; it was a pleasant experience. But I dread the results and the followup, in a way I never used to dread even the results I didn’t like.”

      These multi-week vote counts that some places have are a disaster.

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      1. “These multi-week vote counts that some places have are a disaster.” No, I didn’t mean that; I meant 1/6 style rioting and lying, which I assume will become standard GOP practice. Hope I’m wrong.

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    2. I too was dreading, but I do believe that some of the dread is the hype and the twitter and the national media. I’m trying to control the reactions. Yesterday that was by avoiding the media. I checked in this morning but will try to do the same today.

      We had a school shooting at one of our local high schools yesterday (not election related), but pretty close to home. That one is close enough that its not a media amplification.

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  8. https://mobile.twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1590173879544459264?cxt=HHwWgMDR1fytt5EsAAAA

    Olexander Shcherba (a Ukrainian diplomat) tweets:

    “It’s almost 5am in Ukraine. Still watching #ElectionDay on CNN. There’s nothing more mesmerizing in the world of politics than American election nights.”

    !

    I was talking to my sis recently (sis is married into a German family) about the uncomfortable feeling one has when one realizes that everybody is watching our politics.

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  10. I got an email fundraising for Whitmer (for the Governor’s race) after the election was called and a text from the first “Gen Z” representative fundraising for the next round this morning. I haven’t been willing to unsubscribe/report these mailings (the mailings do stop when you unsubscribe, but then they reappear through other lists).

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