When you know you take voting seriously

[ckd]

When you're the 22nd (hr_macgirl) and 23rd (me) people to vote in your precinct, at 1830. (Polls closed at 2000.)

Special election to fill a vacant seat; the only actual race was in the Democratic primary, and so there was only one candidate on the ballot (plus the write-in line).

It was amusing to see how happy the poll workers were to see us, though.

Comments

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Oh dear lord I would be so, so, very tempted to start a quiet revolt for a write in candidate in such a situation. I just don't know what sort of lunatic I'd want to put in... Socialist? Green? Raving Monster Silly Party? The possibilities for chaos are endless with just a few hundred people and some strategic confusion.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

I'd be very tempted to write in "None of the above".


Why yes, I am cynical...

[hr-macgirl.livejournal.com]

the unofficial results from the city (http://www.cambridgema.gov/alert.cfm?alert_id=65) report that the only candidate got 452 votes. No breakdown by precinct; you can make your own guesses on how many of those votes came from senior centers with a voting population with higher turnout than average.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

I am not that religious about voting, but then again, from '01-'06, I was only able to vote by absentee, and only then in federal elections. (I may start being a lot more religious about it now...)

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

I was the 28th to vote at our polling station yesterday for the election... and my housemate #27. And this was at around 6:30 or so as well.

But I wanted to keep my record of not missing a single election, special election or primary in the City... because there's only a very tiny number of voters who can claim such on the rolls who have made every single one for the past 10 years.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I've voted in every election I've been eligible for, even to the point of having two nurses take me in one of their cars with a wheelchair and two IV poles when I was in the hospital with the first renal failure. If I'd had any idea I'd be in for nine months, I would have arranged an absentee ballot. As it was, I got out to vote. (And the folks in line were very nice and let us go to the front.)

[seborn.livejournal.com]

ha! 1830, voter #14.
Of course, my precinct only has about 400 people in it. Yours may be bigger.

[ckd]

The primary had a turnout of somewhere over 220, so I suspect it is a larger precinct.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Wow. We had the Republican primary for sheriff recently* and I was the 87th in my precinct at about 2pm.

*In Virginia, you don't register for a party and you can vote in either primary, but not both. In this case, there was not only not a Democratic primary, there won't be a Democratic candidate, so whoever won the Republican primary would be the sheriff. Fortunately, most people agreed with me and the guy I voted for won with 61%. The scary part was that the guy who wanted to make the sheriff's office into illegal immigration deportation central got 18%.

[ckd]

The MA voting system, like our street layout, is confusing and tied up in historical contingencies.

You can be registered in a party, in which case you can only vote in that party's primary. A party must meet certain criteria (a certain percentage of the vote for a statewide office, or a minimum number of registered voters choosing that party). If it doesn't, it's a "political designation". The list of both is online.

At the moment, there are four parties: Republican, Democratic, Green-Rainbow, and Working Families. (The last had a candidate for Auditor who made the threshold.) In past years, the Libertarian Party has managed to get enough of a statewide run together to be a major party, but not in 2006.

If you're not in a party, you're considered Unenrolled, which is what anywhere else would call Independent, but here we have a designation for the "American Independent Party". (With a whopping 184 members.) There are also designations for the Green Party and Rainbow Coalition, even though they've been running candidates on a joint ticket as Green-Rainbow.

I think my favorite designation name is Timesizing Not Downsizing.

If you're an Unenrolled voter you can vote in any party's primary. If you vote in a Presidential primary, you are automatically enrolled in that party, but can re-unenroll immediately thereafter; they'll even give you a postcard to mail in to make it easier. Other primaries don't auto-enroll you.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

In Virginia, we've only ever had Nader and LaRouche seriously on the ballots -- at least in the 37 years I've lived here. But we do get Independents who figure they'll get a better deal that way than through the Republican primary. A lot of Republicans run unopposed.