It's Election Day in the USA Tuesday, MKF!!! 11/08/05

[FineyMcFine]

Hey kittens who are registered voters in the USA - today is Election Day! There are statewide elections in Virginia and New Jersey for governor, ballot measures in Maine, Texas, and California, just to name a few, and a slew of local elections in cities all over the country.

So at the polls after you vote they give you a sticker that says "I Voted / Yo Vote'". How about this thread being a virtual "I Voted" sticker? Post here if you voted today (or if you already voted early or absentee).

I voted!

[oneyedchicklet]

The 19th Ammendment to the US Constitution granted me as a woman the right to vote in 1920. I have excercised that right for the last 21 years and will continue to do so today.

In NJ, we are voting for Governor. My only problem is, I haven't decided which is the lesser of the two evils. I think Acting Governor Cody has done a great job and I only wish that he was running.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people complain about how a person is doing in office and the very next sentence, the complainer says "oh I didn't vote" or "I'm not a registered voter". In my honest opinion, if you don't vote, don't complain.

I'm seriously stuck on who to vote for and probably won't know until I'm in the booth.

Have a great day everyone!!!

Barb

[sam7777]

In California, we had the propositions special election wasting millions of tax payers dollars courtesy of our worthless governator. I voted NO on his nasty repug agenda (props 73-78). I also vote in every election however hopless since as an immigrant I grew up with folks who only got to vote for the first time in this country. So I dutifully trudge to the polls to vote.

[VixenyTarasHot]

Yeap. I voted last friday against Proposition 2... Stating that marriage in Texas is defined as that between a man and a woman only.. bla bla bulls--t...
I got as many people as I could to vote, but I still don't think Liberal Dallas can outweigh the rest of Texas :(

We'll see.

Ashleigh

[Culzean]

I'll be voting this evening after work. And it will give me great pleasure to vote against everything Arnold has placed on the ballot in this idiotic special election.

[JustSkipIt]

My wife and I went over and voted last Saturday at early voting. Ashleigh: you consider Dallas liberal? Cool. I've always considered it pretty conservative but then I'm comparing it to Austin.

Blah blah on one man & one woman. For those who don't know, the lawmakers of Texas managed to write this ammendment so that it actually may invalidate all marriage. I'm kind of amused and waiting to see if someone could challenge that in the courts.

Interestingly, when we went to vote they had a kids's voting computer set up so our son could vote too.

[Foomatic]

I voted bright and early this morning and am proudly wearing my sticker for all to see.

[JustSkipIt]

My work just sent an e-mail saying that we could take an hour of administrative leave if we need it to vote. Usually it's a "if you can't get to the polls outside work hours, discuss it with your boss" type thing which kind of implies that you are an idiot if you can't do it around work. So this is encouraging from a GOTV point of view. On the other hand, given where I work, I think the fewer of my co-workers who make it to the polls, the better for me...

[skittles]

I just moved to this "new" place a couple of months ago...

but I voted!!! just city council seats, but I voted.

Now I have the right to complain!!

[oneyedchicklet]

Yes Skittles, you may complain now. Glad to hear you voted.

NJ has elected a new Governor. Jon Corzine has defeated Doug Forrester.

Love to All,
Barb

[FineyMcFine]

The Bangor News is reporting 25% of the vote in and No on 1 (don't repeal the sexual orientation/gender identity non-discrimination law) is winning at 57%. (Good for the GLBT and ally side!)

Not so good in Texas, though - seems like 75% voting yes to ban marriage for same-sex couples.

[Roger Doger]

As a straight, married man in Texas, I just want to express my solidarity with all you gay and lesbian kittens out there who frequent this board.

Proposition #2 in Texas is just ignorance, bigotry and religious hatred under the cover of law. It's disgraceful in a country which used to pride itself on freedom. I employ the past tense on purpose, because I don't think it's the case anymore. We’re going backwards, not forwards.

If Willow and Tara were a real couple, I don't see how anyone could want to deny them a marriage. Gay couples can have just as romantic and deserving a relationship as any straight couple can, and it's senseless to deny them the opportunity to form a legal commitment towards each other.

I love my wife, and I love and honor our union. I certainly don’t see how allowing gays to marry is any threat to our marriage.

[VixenyTarasHot]

Roger Doger = a good man whoot!

And Debra... I don't think compared to Austin Dallas is more liberal lol. but Yeah, I really would consider it liberal.. especially in the college scene, and hell colleges take up more than..well.. a lot of Dallas' population

Anywho.. looks like it still didn't help any...

Ashleigh

ETA: Cuz I forgot a few words cuz its early in the morning and one of my sentences made no sense, and HEY look mom I'm a willowhand!! whot!

[Culzean]

Arnie lost! Arnie lost! All four of his ballot measure lost. Whoo hooo!

Of course, we all lost too, since the CA taxpayers had to pay for this farce of a special election.

And now the Govenator has alienated a whole lot of folks he's going to need to work with in the future.

I don't know what he was thinking, his power play was so transparent. Of course Arnold could get more done if he had more power. A dictatorship is an extremly efficient form of government. But that ain't our game. He has to share the sandbox and learn to play nice with the other kids.

Voting was a lot of fun last night!

[sam7777]

Culzean: Agreed. Now all we need is the recall election of the governator to coincide with next spring's primary. THAT would be sweet.

The governator lied about being a moderate republican: he said he was prochoice but supported prop 73 and not anti-gay but vetoed the gay marriage legistlation. He sucks and the sooner gone the better IMHO.

[Warduke]

It's time for the governator to change his famous catch phrase from I'll be back to I won't be back.

[TemperedCynic]

It was a pleasure to boot out Mayor Randy Kelly of St. Paul. It was bad enough when Mayor (now Senator) Norm Coleman changed to Republican after being elected a Democrat. Randy Kelly has to "up the ante" by endorsing Dubyah last year - and he's a Democrat!

Well, we CRUSHED him by a 2-to-1 margin yesterday. Looks like the Dems made some serious gains everywhere. At this rate, I can't wait to see what happens in 2006.

[Jennpurr]

This is a dumb question, but I overheard one of my customers talking about this tonight. Is Hillary Clinton running for president in the next election?

Jen

[sam7777]

She hasn't announced but apparently has interest. I won't vote for Hilary if she does. I won't support the Clintons after her hubby gave us "don't ask don't tell", NAFTA & "welfare reform" and Hilary failed with national health insurance. Hopefully the dems won't be so stupid and will look outside the senate/congress for a candidate.

[JustSkipIt]

Well the G/L community had our asses kicked in Texas. Thanks to Roger Doger. I appreciate all the support and especially that you posted as your first post here! Welcome.

The last I heard the over all was 77% for the Ammendment. That means that for every person I know who voted against it, 3 other people voted for it. Honestly, I feel very stuck on that bit of information. For every person in Texas (who cared to vote) and didn't want to discriminate, 3 other did. It boggles my mind.

I take little comfort in knowing that my home county of Travis is the only county in Texas where the ammendment failed. It's overshelming and depressing.

[EasierSaid]

Just wanted to put this back on the front page, and encourage any U.S. citizen registered to vote and living in one of the Super Tuesday states to get out and vote today. It doesn't matter who you vote for, just get out there and exercise your civic duty!

[maudmac]

Yay! I voted a little while ago. It was fun.

I had been undecided and agonizing over who to vote for until last night. I finally made a decision and it was a relief to mark that ballot today.

November cannot come soon enough for me.

GO VOTE!!!

[kisstheviolets]

happy super tuesday!

unfortunately, oregon's primary is not until late may, so my vote for the democratic nomination will likely be moot at that point. i'm so jealous of you super tuesday peeps. get out there and vote!

[JustSkipIt]

We don't vote until 3/5 so I'm wondering if it will be decided by then. I hope my vote counts in the primary because it's unlikely to matter in the General election.

[maudmac]

Yeah, our primary used to be in June. There was no point in voting by that time. This is the first time Alabama's been part of Super Tuesday, so it's a new experience to have actually had visits from candidates. They always used to ignore us.

[Boschi]

Holy shit. I just got back from the Dem. caucus for my area. (I'm in Kansas). Crazy, crazy, crazy. This precinct had about 200 people turn out for the last pres. caucus in '04. But today, today more than 2,000 showed up. The caucus arrangement is wild - the doors opened at 6 pm and you had to be in line by 7 pm in order to be counted. So everybody was there at the same time (which is kinda the whole caucus idea).

The poor precinct volunteers were completely overwhelmed, the line was literally a half a mile long, the police were called because the line was interfering with traffic, and they had to open up two additional buildings and modify the caucus process on the fly because they couldn't fit everyone in one building.

And, of course, the weather was miserable. Cold, with rain turning to sleet, and 8 inches of snow on the way. Two thousand freezing KS democrats waited outside and managed to be fairly cheerful about the whole thing. Pretty cool actually - even though they were overwhelmed, the volunteers pulled it together, scrambled for resources, kept everyone in good spirits and generally rose to the occasion. If I could, I'd send them a passel of boschi bucks.

As the news reports, KS went for Obama. My precinct looked to be about 6 to 1 for Obama. Which is pretty cool in a way, because this area is where all the "white flight" folks who left Kansas City proper moved to. Not what I expected.

Allrighty, I'm off to bed. My toes are still cold.

[Saena]

Got my absentee ballot in the mail yesterday, and I'm really excited to fill it out! I actually still have no idea who I'm going to vote for. One of my goals for today is to do some research, get my information in order, and start making my choice!! I was too young to vote in the last presidential election, so this is my first.

Saena

[maudmac]

It was hard to figure out which thread to post in, because we have so many old political threads. (Oh, we used to be so political here. Good times. I miss them.) The other election thread seems more sort of international and this one seems more specific to US election stuff, though it was never about the presidential race. Have we really never had a thread just for the presidential election? Maybe it got lost in ezboard hell...

No matter. One thread or another needs to get posted in because we are voting in a week!

I'm reading about record registrations and early voting stuff and how they're predicting record turnout. Good job, people. I don't have much patience for people who don't vote. If you didn't vote, I don't want to hear any complaining. Don't like the candidates? Well, there are probably going to be more than two of them on your ballot; there are probably some Libertarians or Independents or Greens or whoever who might be more to your liking. And there is always a line down there for you to write in a vote for someone who didn't make the ballot.

It's really an outrage to me that so many people don't vote, especially considering that, for the majority of the population of this country, people like YOU weren't allowed to vote less than a century ago. And back in the day, even the supposedly-privileged white men were only allowed to vote if they were landowners. Suffrage has been a struggle for a lot of groups throughout history and is still a serious issue in many parts of the world. (You could argue it is still a serious issue here in the US since several states permanently bar convicted felons from voting - this is over 5 million people.)

I do hope that whatever happens next Tuesday doesn't drag out for weeks and weeks and weeks like that shit with the hanging chads did. I want this over because I'm sick of hearing about it...which is why I'm posting about it on the internet!

Fingers crossed that all the states that have same-sex marriage issues on the ballots make the right decision there.

[maudmac]

It's not gonna be funny if McCain/Palin wins.

[urnofosiris]

I am so not watching the news until it is over and the definite results are in. Funny picture btw, well done, it´s quite a feat to see that face and be able to smile at the same time.