While I was off having shoulder surgery this week, my absentee ballot for the November election arrived from Texas. I shall vote this weekend and mail it back early next week.
The plan has always been for me to vote Obama/Biden. But now I’m wondering if anyone would actually try to bribe me to vote for McCain/Palin? Hmmm. I’ll tell you what. I’ll hold off voting for a day or so, and if I receive a serious offer from a McCain supporter on this Board of … oh, let’s make it US$1 million, I promise I’ll consider voting for McCain. I’m not promising to vote for McCain, mind you, but I’ll give it some serious consideration, I promise. So how about it? Any takers?
And I see that jokey Libertarian Party has made it onto the Texas ballot, with Bob Barr and Wayne A Root running for president and vice president, respectively. I’m afraid I could not give any serious thought to voting Libertarian for anything less than $10 million, and since I doubt there are any Libertarians who have $10 million, I guess I won’t be mulling voting for them. Just as well.
So how about it? Serious offers only, please. Pay me $1 million, and I promise to at least think about voting for McCain/Palin.
Here in Minnesota, just to offer such as this is a felony, with up to 7 years in prison if convicted.
And it’s enforced. Our County Attorney recently prosecuted a college student who offered his vote on eBay or Craigslist. He was convicted, but got off easy, with just a few years probation. (Though he may possibly face expulsion from his college.)
I’m not offering to sell my vote. I’m offering to consider voting for McCain. In no way does this mean I will vote for McCain. I simply promise to think about it yet one more time if paid a million bucks, and then if I still go ahead and vote for Obama, that’s just too bad.
Well, great. Now you’ve got me worried that people will think I was selling my vote, which I would never do. Again, all a Republican would have gotten for that $1 million was my sitting down for a reasonable amount of time and reviewing all of the positive reasons I could have thought of for voting for McCain before filling out my ballot. Naturally, I would probably still have voted for Obama, but at least I would have thought about McCain one more time.
But I say the Republican “would have gotten” because it’s too late! It’s now a DONE DEAL. Republicans, put away your checkbooks! I have gone ahead and filled out my ballot, and I am pleased to announce that I am one of the first Americans to vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden for president and vice president, respectively. Actually, I voted a straight Democratic ticket, which is what I usually do even though I am affiliated with no specific party myself.
I dunno, maybe I should have waited for the Biden-Palin debate. Maybe that Sarah babe would have dazzled me with some unexpected wisdom. But oh well. My ballot is now filled out and sealed, and I shall convey it to a local post office on Monday.
I’m voting absentee, as well. I’ve never done it before, but I have a class on election day. It’s going to be impossible to vote prior to leaving for class, and I’m not entirely sure I’ll be home before the polls close. I’ve never missed a general election and I’m sure as hell not going to miss THIS one.
Now, for $50,000, I would promise to give 5 minutes’ worth of serious thought to falling into a canal as I’m taking the ballot to the post office on Monday.
In addition to absentee voting, I also have the option of early voting, which can be done at several locations. I may take advantage of it, because my new voting location is not as convenient for me as my old one was.
I got mine yesterday and just opened it up. We’ve got Bob Barr of the Libertarians, Ralph Nadar the Independent, and Chuck Baldwin of the Alaskan Independence, in addition to McCain and Obama. Hmmm, tough decision, Nadar or Baldwin, Nadar or Baldwin…
I have been told by some friends in an area where they still use those corruptible electronic voting machines that they are going to vote absentee, just because they then vote on a paper ballot.
They think that the paper ballot will actually have all the offices listed (last time, the electronic machine did not give them any chance to vote for US Congress – it simply never appeared on the screen in their mainly democratic part of the district.) Now their only worry is that the ballot will get ‘lost’ somehow. So they intend to xerox the completed ballot, then send it back via registered mail.
Is this true in most locations that still use electronic voting machines – that absentee ballots are still done via paper ballots?
I can. Here we vote with the exact same paper ballots whether it is absentee or regular voting. They are all fed through the same machine at the precinct to be counted.
But we don’t use those electronic machines at all, we use plain paper ballots. And we have the highest voter turnout in the country.
I was wondering how they did it at places where they do use those machines.
LOUNE is right. There are a lot of very good reasons for people to use absentee ballots. So many people don’t know that you don’t have to be out of town to use them (at least in NJ). They’re a great solution to people with mobility issues or major anticipated schedule problems.
I’m struggling with the decision of whether to vote absentee or not.
On one hand, on election day, I’m going to be absurdly busy with the Get Out The Vote effort, so it would make sense to vote absentee.
On the other hand, it will feel so good to actually step into that voting booth and pull that (proverbial) lever for Barack…
But, but, but Baldwin chose Darrell Castle to balance the ticket. He has no bathing suit pictures in the British tabloids this weekend. That’s gotta count for something, right?
I’m voting absentee this year (as I did in the primaries), and I’m still waiting on mine to come in the mail. I’m a little worried, because the address it’s supposed to come through then has to forward it to me, and by the time it gets to wherever I am that week I might not be there, and could be in the Middle East by that time (where mail is slooow), yikes.
