The Early Vote Is In
Posted on October 25, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 27 Comments
Athena and I beat the rush to the polls this November by voting early today. It’s become my tradition to vote as early as I can (presuming I know who I am going to vote for, which this year I very much do) to have it done and not worry that something will keep me from voting on the day, like pleurisy or being pinned under a car. I dragged Athena along because voting is more fun if you bring a friend or loved one — try it and see!
It will not come as surprise to any of you that this election there was not a single Republican on my ballot. The GOP has well and truly gone over the bend and become unapologetically bigoted and fashy; I don’t give my votes to a political party that thinks democracy is an impediment to rule. That being said, I live in a profoundly conservative area so I don’t pretend my local choices are likely to prevail. State-wide and in the senatorial race? Here’s hoping.
If you have the option to vote early, I really do encourage it. It’s a nice feeling to have exercised one’s franchise, and everyone who can vote early makes the election day lines for those who can’t vote early that much more tolerable. Do it for yourself; do it for others.
But whatever you do: vote.
— JS
Done.
Whoa, when did “profoundly conservative” come to mean “tolerates or embraces authoritarians & fascists? Octavia Butler would have hated this timeline, I think. BTW, KPS is a delightful read. Thank you for writing it! You’re doing for SF what Pratchett did for Fantasy.
I am voting early as I am going to be a poll worker this year – first time now that I have retired! I didn’t realize previously that you have to work from 5 am to 10 pm. I thought there were shifts. I’m looking forward to it.
Done – via absentee just to annoy the conspiracy minded.
I voted on 10/17 (the first day the polls opened) and confirmed my ballot online today.
Stacey Abrams
Rafael Warnock
Bee Nguyen
And whoever is running for the House in GA06 (my newly gerrymandered district) who never did anything to promote himself, but there was a D by his name, so …
I’ve filled out my mail-in ballot and will be dropping it in the mailbox on my way home from work tonight.
@ Bruce McRae:
“Whoa, when did “profoundly conservative” come to mean “tolerates or embraces authoritarians & fascists?”
If you have a strong stomach, you may want to check out “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives”, a so-called “article” that recently appeared in a certain publication. Link not included, but it’s easily Googlable.
Yes, it’s written by an openly and proudly fascist gobshite, in a rag pandering to vile scum of the lowest order imaginable. But it captures the GQP’s present white supremacist, anti-democratic moment in a nutshell.
Voted here in South Carolina Monday. Long line. Took about an hour start to finish. Too bad there weren’t more Dems on the ballot. Sigh…
Done via absentee.
The GOP has been the party of bigots for decades, but they used to be relatively sane. Their policies may have been vile but they weren’t actively delusional.
Good for both of you
My wife and I did our early mail-in ballots today as well.
Vote People!
I wish I could say I didn’t vote for a Republican, but the new touch-screen voting machines in my county wouldn’t let me skip past the only one person running categories without selecting the only person running. Knew I should have voted absentee.
All about the mail-in voting here in MA, done early and done well… And yes, going one party made it kinda easy to navigate the candidates…seems like that’ll be a thing for awhile.
I sent in my absentee ballot today. I confess I voted for one R on the county level, someone I believe to be level headed and strictly businesslike on the job. I also withheld a vote for one R who had no D opponent. But D for everything else.
I also voted early, nice that it’s done. I also went straight Democrats when party was a factor. I honestly miss the old GOP where they weren’t crazy and added some balance. But now they are nothing but unbalanced. The times have changed…
I voted by mail & according to Track My Vote, my ballot has been received & is in the queue to be counted. It’s a good feeling.
I dropped off my ballot today. I won’t tell you the party I voted for, but I will say that the candidate who thought that the most pressing problem in our state is kids who identify as cats…did not get my vote.
Here in SC, I’ll wait for the actual voting day. It’s a mid-term so the lines will be short. It’s just down the street from me.
It saddens me that there are no folks willing to compromise anymore. I want fiscal responsibility. (SC actually has a law that says the state government can’t spend more than they take in) but I’m also a social liberal. Libertarians would be a logical choice except for their desire to retract from the world.
Just worried that the GOP is groping for a more authoritarian world.
No one on the menu that I like. Again, I’ll have to settle for the lesser evil.
There is just something about voting on voting day that I like. Maybe it is the almost ritualistic aspect of it. I don’t know. But my life is pretty simple and where I vote is in a moderately wealthy, mostly white, district so it is very easy to vote.
It isn’t so much that I am a Democrat as I am anti-Republican. I was that even before Dumpty Trumpty. After Dipshit Donnie I am even more opposed to the Trumplican party.
First election voted straight ticket GOP. Will be an interesting election night.
Conga-rats on voting early!
We all got our mail-in ballots already. I’ve filled mine out, and I’ll have my hubby take it to the polling place to be counted. I won’t leave it to the USPS.
Yes, I’m voting blue, as is hubby. Dad left the QOP to be an independent. He’ll likely vote against our incumbent, as he is crooked and was rude to me when I e-mailed him on topics that concerned me. Calvert only represents rich white males, apparently.
Since COVID, New York lets anyone who wants to vote by absentee ballot. We did.
One of the things I get to vote on this November is whether my state should start the process of allowing early voting in the future.
I’m not just an early voter, I’m also a long-shot candidate!
My personal local ballot this year is depressing. It’s pretty much uncompetitive: there’s the Democrat running unchallenged or running against some longshot shrieking harpy. One or two of the Democrats I do appreciate enough to vote for, but the others could use some actual intellectual competition to kick their rear-end into something a little more productive and civics focused than echoing the party line and keeping the office chair warm.
The untenable partisanship of the right is also weakening the left and reducing our capacity to solve literally any problems. I’d love if the result was such consistent right wing losses that they had to pivot back to goals-and-issues rather than ideology and culture wars, but instead the Democrats are facing a rout because of real inflation and perceived crime — something the GOP has no legit or rarely even stated, meaningful plans to fix. So instead they just might make it harder for people to vote instead, solving nothing but consolidating power.
What a mess.
Just got my ballot here in Oregon, where we’re fighting off an unexpected red menace thanks to the interference of Nike billionaire Phil Knight. And a couple of tight House races too. Ugh. It’s gonna come down to turnout.
Just did the same myself this morning, ballot now safely ensconced in the town clerk’s drop box.
https://www.someweekendreading.blog/voted-2022/
Voted.
My advice is not to look at polling. I think the models are profoundly broken this year, with no way to compensate. The likely voters model, which is the filter pollsters place on their results, cannot account for new voters or for black swan events. And I think we’ve had one this year.