Please vote

Like others, i will vote like I always do, on election day at my local voting place.

Yup, gotta vote. We mailed in ours early: mailed them on Tuesday, showed as recorded on Thursday. That's impressive. 

I do agree that there is something special about voting in person on Election Day, but I'm playing it safe this year. I will be at the polls on Election Day, though, but in a more official capacity. 

Done, as is my privilege last Friday. Took an hour, which is a while in a town of 15K. 

Everyone was on their best behavior. Definitely a charged situation, but felt good.

I'd like to get the stupid phone calls to stop . I'm not even a citizen but they all need me to get out there and vote apparently.

I stood  in the rain for almost two hours for early voting on Monday.  I'm in a swing state, and not about to absentee vote and risk vote counting shenanigans on my ballot.

mailed in my first one already

Repeal the 17th amendment.

Might actually mean less political coverage, donations etc etc.

I really don't want to hear about  a Texas Senate race.

Less direct participation the better.

Look at all the ' man in the street ' interviews. Especially by Campus Reform. 

Having said that I do respect what Scott Pressler does.

Early voted in person last week. Line was over 1/4 mile long but only took an hour. There was a LOT of space in the line because people were being good about it. Mrs. Deuce voted yesterday. 

One tangential thought I forgot to mention earlier. There has been talk by various people in the past about making Election Day a national holiday. Cool, right? Maybe get more participation. Well, the logistics there could be tough as even with national holidays, it seems some people don't/can't get the day off.

Virginia has been doing early-in-person voting and I would support something like this for say, two weeks before "Election Day" - gives everyone plenty of time to make it in to a polling place, lines would theoretically be short/nonexistent as nobody's trying to cram an entire state's population through the process in one day.

Just musings. But I loved being able to find whatever time in my week worked best for me and wander over to vote.

Stampie (FS) said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

I"m not registered to either party and since my vote is secret neither is willing to take the risk of asking me to vote.  I get like no political spam.

But hopefully you are registered to vote?  Otherwise you get no say in what the government does. 

NOHOME said:

WonkoTheSane (Forum Supporter) said:

We both voted two weeks ago via mail.  

For the Greatest Show On Earth, we live in one of those states where our vote is only worth 12.8% of a "Real 'merican's!" 

Can you expand on that? Me no understand.

Electoral college. Some states have more reps/population than others. A vote from California (high population state) has less weight than one from Wyoming (low pop state), or something like that. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Nor could I get the cool I voted sticker.  Yes registered and make sure my voice is heard as loud and often as possible.

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

Ours have been 'received' for ~two weeks at this point.  No idea if they will be counted.   At this point, I'm just happy they made it through our* convoluted mail system (*specifically the hurdles the sleepyhead mail has to navigate in particular).

Mine shows the same.

But then reading the website I saw this statement that put me at ease:

nutherjrfan said:

Repeal the 17th amendment.

...

Less direct participation the better.

If we'd do away with the 12th as well we could really streamline the process.

Absent that, I'll be voting in person on 3 Nov. I mean if I don't vote then, what else am I supposed to do on Election Day?

I agree that it is our duty as much as our right to vote!

Early in person started here on 10/5. I took a late lunch on 10/13 and voted. Took half an hour and there were only 20 or so in line when I got there. I bet it would take a lot longer on 11/3. And there will probably be a butt load of people not wearing masks & not keeping appropriate distance. I made the right decision for me.

In reply to Stampie (FS) :

Good for you. 

You've got my vote Stampie

Please EDUCATE yourself on what you are voting for... THEN vote.

If you are not sure on a topic please don't vote, or at least default to no (for issues of course).

This "everyone vote" thing bothers me because I suspect a high percentage of people go off of the adds on the TV / internet.  There is generally almost NO useful information in those adds.

At least y'all got your ballots - me not so much. I changed my registration and found out Friday it was "not put in the system correctly". Ballot should be here by Friday. I won't vote for the incumbent Registrar. 

I agree with eliminating the Electoral College. It has out lived it's purpose and takes away the one person one vote ideal in presidential elections.

aircooled said:

Please EDUCATE yourself on what you are voting for... THEN vote.

If you are not sure on a topic please don't vote, or at least default to no (for issues of course).

This "everyone vote" thing bothers me because I suspect a high percentage of people go off of the adds on the TV / internet.  There is generally almost NO useful information in those adds.

I was going to skip this election for the first time since I turned 18 but decided I'll go vote on the 3rd in person.

Hawaii is 100% vote by mail, but I handed mine to our friendly neighborhood postal carrier for an extra sense of security. Feels good (as always) to participate in this wonderful democracy of ours, mahalo! \m/

I agree with eliminating the Electoral College. It has out lived it's purpose and takes away the one person one vote ideal in presidential elections.

The whole purpose of the Electoral College was to ensure representation of the individual states. Without it, the more populous states would have overwhelming influence on elections, and the smaller states would be forgotten. All of our current battleground states would be pushed aside by CA, TX, and NY. A state’s electoral votes are proportional to the population, +2 for the state’s two senators. That +2 actually gives a mathematical advantage to the small states percentage wise, so a VT vote actually counts for more than a CA vote. This was not on accident- this is in many ways a moot argument, because without the electoral college we likely wouldn’t have the United States (right there in the name) of America. The smaller of the original 13 colonies had no desire to trade one form of control from afar for another, that is why state’s rights were so important to the founding of our country. Without them, we would be a bunch of small countries like Europe right now. The individual states have their own say on how their electoral votes are divided. The all or nothing method is fairly recent, and a couple states still proportion their electoral votes. If you would like your state to switch to proportional votes, you can take that up with your local representatives. 

There is a lot of misinformation out there on electoral Vs. popular votes. The most common misconception is the “If we went by popular vote, candidate X would have won.” Both candidates know how the system works. Both candidates do the best they can to get the most votes within that system. If the rules had been different, they would have run their campaigns differently, in different states, and the popular vote totals would likely be different. Here is a good autocross analogy-

You get four runs, fastest time of those four runs wins. Those are the rules that everyone is competing by. Driver A has a slow first run, faster run 2, overdrives run 3 with 2 cones, and finishes with a fast and clean run 4 with the winning time. Driver B  has four consistent runs, and his total time is better than diver A, but his best run was not as good as A’s best. Do we call driver B the winner? We sure don’t, because the rules ask for the single best time. Had the rules been different from the start, a total of all four runs, driver A would likely have changed his strategy and still won. 

I will vote in person.  It sounds like most everyone else will have voted by then.

I normally don't peel these off, and if I do they last long enough to end up in the washer at home.  This year felt like it needed an acknowledgement, so it ended up on the toolbox.