Election Day!

I VOTED!

Did you?

Comments

[Jeff]

Ballots are right behind me (mine and my wife's) and I'll walk them over to the Stayton Library at lunch.

[HB]

Please send a sheet of the positions of all the candidates or a site address where I read them in a hurry.

[Gullyborg]

I also delivered mine today, rather than mailing. Call it my little "protest" against the vote-by-mail system.

Voting needs to be on a certain day for a reason: it allows everyone to have the same information at the time of voting. When the media goes out of its way to let certain news lie and break other news timed to influence elections (one way or the other), it makes it harder for anyone voting early to vote with all the facts.

Of course, one could also argue this very reason makes it more important to spread out the ballot returns over time, so a late-minute "October surprise" has less impact. Considering the average October surprise is geared to cause an emotional gut-reaction rather than bring real material facts to the debate, maybe a system that reduces the effect of the October surprise is a good thing.

But then, I also think voting should be something that takes time and effort out of your day. It is a right, but it is also a responsibility. I think people who vote should WANT to vote enough to head over to a polling place during their busy day. I think about the lines of first time voters in Iraq and Afghanistan, braving bombs and machine gun fire in order to exercise freedom. They know it MEANS something to vote. I don't think people realize so much just what the process means when they can fill out a ballot from their kichen table, slap a stamp on it, and drop it off with the bills.

So I make it a principle that I only vote on voting day, and I go out into the world and deliver my ballot in person.

[Gullyborg]

HB:

Republicans want to lower your taxes, win the war on terror, and protect all Americans.

democRats want to raise your taxes, lose the war on terror, and cut babies out of pregnant women.

Do you really need a run down?

[rinowatch]

Yessir!

[Jeff]

HB:
http://www.lwvor.org/votersguide.htm

[Vonski]

Yep! And I almost don't want to watch any election coverage tonight, but it's like a train wreck - you have to slow down and look.

[Jeff]

I asked my wife to find a station with cartoons on it this morning... I figured it was the only way to get away from the TV "news" babbling heads (calling them talking heads is giving them too much credit and maturity).

[Coyote]

Well I am in Washington and my closest drop site is 70 miles away. They kinda have me on the whole vote-by-mail thing up here.... sigh...

However when I was in Oregon I ALWAYS dropped my ballot off at election headquarters.

I am going to be hunkered down in my undisclosed bunker location tonight watching (because election day to me is like Christmas morning to kids...) the returns... hoping I am wrong on some of my predictions.

Especially on your guy Gully. Allen I mean.

He has been pounded unmercifully and unfairly. I would have never expected to hear myself predicting a loss for him in that seat.

If it is any consilation however, my DC area contributor tells me that if Webb wins he will be a nightmare to the Democratic caucus. Much the way that Chaffee has been to us.

[Gullyborg]

It does look like every democrat beating a Republican is doing it on a pro-life, pro-gun platform...