32 Comments on “What I Did With My Morning”

1. Yep, I did.

2. I definitely would be, if it was a voting day up here in Canada.

3. Our vote was last Tuesday, here in Colorado, and I helped to pass a very important measure that lets the government of my state keep a sizeable chunk of the tax money they raised, but our ridiculous “Tax Payer Bill of Rights” forced them to return to us.

   Like I can be trusted to wisely spend that $98 instead pooling it with the everyone else’s money and giving the state the funds it needs to pay for higher education and road repairs…

4. Voted at 7:30 this morning and for the first time in my experience of this polling place there was a line. I found that encouraging.

5. Bah, that’s the problem voting absentee. We don’t get cool stickers! (but we can vote in our underwear!)

6. I also voted today, and my sticker is identical to yours (also from http://www.ohiospirit.org), except where yours says ‘VOTE’, mine says ‘VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE’. Is someone saying that they don’t really care who YOU vote for, but MY vote means something? :)

7. So, did you vote for Kaine or Kilgore?

   I just read that some of the electronic voting machines were registering Kilgore no matter which candidate you actually selected – gotta’ love them Diebold machines…

8. Your stickers are better than ours.

9. John H:

   “So, did you vote for Kaine or Kilgore?”

   Neither, since I live in Ohio now, not Virginia.

10. I voted too, but I didn’t get a sticker. Even though it’s my birthday! Still no stickers for me. :(

    Also, can I just say how much I hate the way NY lets its parties cross-endorse candidates? We had three or four people running on the Republican and Democratic tickets. There was at least one running as Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Independent, and Right to Life. …the hell?

11. For once, the Cincinnati mayor’s race is not between dumb and dumberer. I actually flipped a coin to pick a candidate and was happy with the result.

    What I can’t believe is a suspected child beater is running for reelection to council.

    What I can believe is he’ll probably lose his job tonight.

12. Man, we never get friggin’ stickers. Of course, I live in a very-low-turnout precinct of Dallas. Most of the time there aren’t even any electioneers out here.

13. Chris, move to California: you can vote in your underwear and get a sticker, if you’re not bashful.

    On the down side, you do have to wade through some of the dumbest ideas since Adam.

14. Yup, I even voted right up here in Maine. What is cool is that I forgot to register to vote, but was able to register when I got to the voting booth, with proper identificaiton. But apparently you have to get there early to get a nice sticker!

    The reason why I made sure to get there was Question 1, which asked us to repeal a law that gives protection from discrimination to gays and lesbians in housing, education, employment, public accommodations and credit. A “yes” vote repeals the law; a “no” vote upholds it.

    I decided I like that law, so I voted no!

15. I voted…

    but somehow it felt like a shell… a front… a dry run for next year where instead of voting down Arnie’s bad ideas I get to vote down Arnold.

    This is something of an admission of error, since those of you who have been paying close attention (hopefully nobody) would remember that I actually approved of Gov. Arnold S. before he took office. *sigh*

16. “This is something of an admission of error, since those of you who have been paying close attention (hopefully nobody) would remember that I actually approved of Gov. Arnold S. before he took office. *sigh*”

    Why’s it an admission of error? People generally have it wrong. The people who voted for a guy should scream the loudest when their candidate turns out to be a dud.

    Sort of like the Republican Party is with Bush these days.

17. Voted at about 1:30 this afternoon; got a nice little sticker that says “I Made Freedom Count In Denton County, TX”.

    Heh.

18. DOH!

    It helps if I pay attention to what I was reading – I started off reading about problems with the machines in Ohio and ended up reading about similar problems in Virginia, but thought it was still about Ohio.

    Anyway…

19. Voted. Except for our mayoral race it was all a case of hold one’s nose and vote for the least bad alternative. I did get a nice sticker but it won’t be much compensation for having the clowns take over our city council.

20. We still have those lovely old-fashioned voting machines here in suburban Pennsylvania. I think my vote actually gets counted…

    Yeah, there’s a fair amount of rumbling in the blogosphere about the Diebold machines in Virginia…

21. Voted and turned in my hubbies vote (we’re both absentee ’cause there aren’t enough registered voters in our precinct) this afternoon.

22. Had to vote in Pennsylvania. The legislature gave themselves huge pay raises to themselves and the judges (15 to 54 percent increases), and my wife and I want to bag us some incumbents. Unfortunately, the only targets in sight are two high court judges.

23. I voted against all of Arnie’s stupid ideas today. I agree with John. All of the “Join Arnold” people from back in 2003 should stand up and scream loudly about how they no longer approve of their Governator.

    For a good laugh, check out:
    http://www.schwarzeneggerstreet.com

    (I hope I had the spelling right on that one)

24. I have to admit, I didn’t vote today, but I have a good excuse. I just moved to a new state last week, so I missed the deadline to register for today’s election in my new home.

    I do feel guilty about it, though.

25. Did you get to use the cool new electronic polling machines, John?

    How funny was it to have a lady the age of my grandmother telling me how to use a computer?

26. I must admit, I didn’t vote today. However, that’s because I’m living in Cambridge, MA and am registered in Ohio… thus, my absentee ballot was in the mail several weeks ago.

    I’m happy to see state issues 2-5 going down in flames, but am mildly concerned that #1 might squeak through… #2-5 are nominally for the purpose of reforming Ohio’s election procedures, but in reality all they would appear to do is create a bunch of new, appointed positions to handle the election stuff. So, basically, increase gov’t payroll, decrease accountability to voters. Me no likey.

    As for #1, which ostensibly is intended to further investment and growth in the industrial and research sectors in the state, my main problem is that (if I understand it right) it basically would give Ohio cities the right to (legally!) pull a Kelo… it would define the aforementioned investment in industry and research as a public purpose. Boom, clear path to permit eminent domain takings like in Kelo. While it does directly mention eminent domain down in the last section, all it does is state that the General Assembly has the power to make laws:

    [R]estricting or limiting the taking by eminent domain of private property for disposition to private sector entities for research and development and the development of sites and facilities….

    So, if the GA decides, “Hey, it’d be for the public good that we turn all of West Cleveland into a Boeing manufacturing facility… think of the tax revenue!” they could pass a law that would permit it. Makes me just a tad uneasy…

27. They really should enclose some stickers with our absentee ballots.

28. In California we can be permanent absentee voters… so I always vote because my ballot always comes to my house.

    By the way, I found your website via Body of Evidence…

29. Bill Peschel wrote: Had to vote in Pennsylvania. The legislature gave themselves huge pay raises to themselves and the judges (15 to 54 percent increases), and my wife and I want to bag us some incumbents. Unfortunately, the only targets in sight are two high court judges.

    That makes about as much sense as invading Iraq because of 9/11.

30. The last time I voted, I felt like a housewife turning her first trick for grocery money after the family’s breadwinner has a stroke – like it was something I knew I had to do, and that few people could blame me for doing, but I still felt all sticky and depressed afterward.

    So, I’m simply going to reserve that feeling for the big ones. Not worth it to me to go through that to weigh in on things like who should round up the town’s mutts and whether the next generation deserves better schooling than they’re interested in looking up from their handhelds to pay attention to.

31. Our Pennsylvania government voted for an increase for the Governor and the judges and then tacked on the legislature raise as a “compromise” to get the other raises through. Not that any of them needed it badly since they automatically get cost-of-living raises. In fact, the legislature is now the second highest paid in the country. Except for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has a reasonable cost of living, so you’ll see why we’re a little annoyed. The judges in question didn’t offer to refuse or donate any of their new income, so some voters are also annoyed with them. I believe they both got reelected though.

    As for my local leaders, our new county executive won by 6 votes in a county of over 200,000 register voters (but a turnout of only 36%). Assuming the recount doesn’t change the tally, of course.

32. Update: Looking in the paper this morning, I see that we actually voted one of the judges out. Just so you know.