I voted today! Midterms 2022

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I voted today in North Carolina.

I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout at the early voting location, a local library - I even had to drive once around the parking lot before a space opened up. And this was at 11AM on a Wednesday in the middle of the early voting period, a time I picked thinking it would be a slow time.

I was in line about 20 minutes and I educated a Republican! I’m assuming he was a Republican, because he had a 2A baseball cap on. The conversation (there were a couple of other people lightly participating) went like this.

2A Hat Guy - I checked the website after I voted early in 2020, and it said I voted via absentee ballot.

Other people - I’m sure it was a technicality or something.

Me- Early voting is technically called in-person absentee voting

Other people nod in agreement

2A Hat Guy - I don’t think the website said that, though.

Me- If someone had submitted an absentee ballot in your name, it would’ve been flagged when you showed up at the early voting site and they would’ve told you there was an issue at the time. You would still get to vote, but it would be on a special provisional ballot that isn’t counted until the issue has been investigated.
Each person only gets one ballot. It’s actually quite common for someone to request an absentee ballot then they decide to vote in person. Then they have to fill out a provisional ballot, because each person only gets one ballot. The provisional ballot isn’t counted until the election board determines that the absentee ballot hasn’t been returned.

I’m not sure 2A Hat Guy bought it, but he appeared to agree, then we had a pleasant non-political conversation for the rest of our time in line. I was pleased with myself for being so well-spoken off the cuff, instead of spending the rest of the day thinking about what I should’ve told the guy.

And I voted a straight D ticket, skipping the races that didn’t have a D running, there were a couple of them.

I’m glad I got it done, and I’m glad to see such good turnout for a midterm.:crossed_fingers:

2

Gotta love a simple positive interaction! :blush:

3

As we speak, I’m manning an early voting site as a volunteer election worker. Ask me anything. :).

4

Wife & I early-voted today. Walked into the library, showed & scanned our respective driver’s licenses, and got back out in about 10 minutes flat. Place had most poll workers & voting machines occupied, but no waiting at any point.

Easy Peasy.

5

I’ve voted already, too. Glad you got it done no matter your stripe.

You are 100% correct on how absentee ballots work. In my burg, the would start the research as soon as they discovered the double vote. But yes, the ballot would be provisional until proven real. I show up at city hall directly to avoid any potential mail-in snafus. Thank you for educating your fellow citizens.

6

Yeah, if a race doesn’t have a Democrat you can vote for, it’s not worth your attention. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

7

That was her choice. I looked up all the candidates on my ballot so I knew where each stood on important issues. Sadly, I couldn’t do that with all the judges up for election. And looking up the judgement records for 35 positions was overwhelming. I did study the ones where there was a choice beyond write in.

8

I’m working Monday and Tuesday as a provisional judge here in Maryland. I guess we’re “volunteers” but we get paid, too.

Most of the action at the provisional table indeed revolves around people who requested mail in ballots and then decided to vote in person.

9

Lucky. My county (also in NC) switched to a new touch-screen system (with a paper print-out) that wouldn’t allow me to skip the races where only a Republican was running. I had to select them in order to proceed to the next race. I washed my hands thoroughly after voting, I assure you.

10

It’s not that I was ignoring the races, but I’m not going to vote for someone that’s actively going to work against everything I believe in. Not voting in the race seemed like the lesser of two evils.

And I probably should’ve mentioned that they were all races ( mostly judicial) where a Republican was running unopposed, so it wasn’t a situation where I could’ve voted for the least horrible candidate.

11

I voted today too in Dallas. I was a little worried I was only one of four people in there at the time.

But I did go early in the morning so maybe that was it. I hope so.

I also was not happy with the number of unopposed positions.

12

I mailed my absentee ballot this past weekend.

13

My wife and I dropped off ours, already got a text that they had been received and accepted.

And not a single Y’all Qaida idiot in the parking lot “watching” us. And I was looking forward to bitching them out, too.

14

There were a couple races on my ballot with no D running, State Mine Inspector for one, I forget the other. I left them blank.

For judge retention, there’s a commission with three parts, prosecution attorneys, defense attorneys, and fellow judges, who tick off + or - in several areas, knowledge of laws and court room demeanor to name a couple I remember, then an aggregate percentage. It covers Supreme, Appellate, and District courts but not Justice.

All of the scores were in the 90s but for one District judge whose aggregate was 77% Him I voted to not retain, I voted to retain for the rest.

The lengthy part was going through all of the proposition arguments. That was over two hours of the three I spent voting. Some had only a couple argument statements and I would read them all. Others had over a dozen and I’d read a few to get the gist then skim the rest to see if they were just restating the ones I had read and most of them were. I would heavily discount statements with too many exclamation points!!!

I filled out the ballot on Sunday then tried to drop it off at city hall the next afternoon but it was inside and they’d closed about ten minutes before I got there. Tuesday bright and early I drove a bit further to the Mesa Justice Court drop off which was outside and accessible 24 hours. There’ve been reports of Fraud Watchers in Mesa taking personal and license plate photos so I was hoping for some that I could photograph back, but there weren’t any. No mules expected at 7am, I guess

15

Ballotpedia and possibly other sites do tell which governor appointed a judge. In my state that makes for a reasonable basis for voting ‘yes, retain’ or ‘no’. I plan to vote ‘no’ for the judges and justices appointed by the last two governors who are Full Deplorable, and ‘yes, retain’ for those appointed by the third guy back who was Republican, but much less deplorable.

Not that my vote will make a difference. But the theory is that the current Governor will appoint only deplorable judges and justices, and so I want to retain the current j&j’s who may be at least marginally sane and decent. If Current Deplorable has to replace some of his own picks, however, he can’t do any more harm than he already has.

As for ballot initiatives/Constitutional Amendments, etc.: I go by how many ads there are urging a “no” vote. If those ads overwhelm any “yes” ads, then I figure they’ve been paid for by the wealthiest among us—and probably because the initiative or amendment would be in the interest of working people. Most of the wealthiest people want to protect that wealth–not help out working people.

So if there are lots of “no” ads I tend to vote “yes.”

16

I dropped my vote into a drive-up drop site today around 12:30 p.m., as we can do here in Oregon. Another lady was just driving away from the drop box and another was just walking away from having deposited her ballot, too. We all smiled at each other.

I voted for every position I was able to verify was either a Democrat or was appointed by a Democrat.

There were 3 individuals running unopposed for seats on a local wildlife and water management board. I was unacquainted with any of them and was able to learn about only one. Didn’t really care for what I found, so I didn’t vote for him or the other 2 who are on the ballot. There was one such position for which no one was running and I left that blank.

I voted yes to amend the Oregon State Constitution to ensure affordable healthcare access; yes to amend same to remove language allowing slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime; yes to amend same to disqualify legislators with ten unexcused absences from floor sessions from holding the next term of office; and voted yes to require a permit to acquire firearms and criminally prohibit certain ammunition magazines with more than 10 rounds.

It usually takes a couple days before I’m able to verify my vote is received and accepted. But I’ll do that on Friday.

Nice to have it done.

17

Likewise (dropped mine off on Friday), though the Soviet of Washington requires one to go to a website.

I’d rather not vote for judges — according to a lawyer friend from New Zealand, the rest of the civilized world regards elected judges as an abomination — but I do as much research as I can and hold my nose.

18

I did too. A few Dems, A few Pubs and one Libertarian.

19

Oh, forgot to mention. I got a text Tuesday from the county registrar that the ballot had been received, then today that it had been verified and counted. With over 80% of being early ballots, Maricopa county counts them as they are received up to Sunday night but does not release the figures, then starts to count the election day ballots and those received Monday just as soon as the polls close, and starts reporting.

20

Mailed my absentee ballot on 10/24/22. Today, 10/26/22 myvote.wi.gov website tells me “Completed absentee ballot received”. With that, I’ve done all I can do.

My county is solidly red. I haven’t seen a Democrat win any office in local vote tallies in the 30 years I’ve lived here. But I’m not really worried about Republican voter suppression around here. They know they will win so why would they bother when they could be out shining deer and drinking Bud Lite.

Since my vote effectively doesn’t count, I can only hope there are enough Democrats out there elsewhere to make up the difference.