Ballot info for local yokels
Nov. 4th, 2006 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
progWelcome back to LiveJournal! Enjoy your stay.
This makes me very pleased: If you're voting in Massachusetts next week, you can use this website to plug in your address and see what your ballot will look like, including referenda. Heretofore I have always been surprised by a couple of these questions, and peeved. I have wanted to see exactly this service for many election cycles.
http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.php
I will throw in the rule of thumb that I think I picked up from, erm, either![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cortezopossum or wrog (both of whom are electionistas in their respective communities), that if a referendum doesn't make any sense to you even after you think about and (if you get the chance) research it, a good rule of thumb is to vote NO.
This seems pretty obvious, since the alternative is basically playing a game of "what does this button do?" with your vote, but I hadn't seen it spelled out like that in the past, and I can dig it.
My hope and anger are both rising together as Tuesday draws closer. They are both definitely exceeding levels seen in 2004. I am continually crafting and refining my Schrodinger's Cat of an LJ post for that evening, at once a cathartic victory howl and grave-pissing, and a vomiting of hate-fueled rage calling for the obliteration of the enemy. I will not actually post it because in either eigenstate it's rather horrible, really.
Anyway, I am very excited.
This makes me very pleased: If you're voting in Massachusetts next week, you can use this website to plug in your address and see what your ballot will look like, including referenda. Heretofore I have always been surprised by a couple of these questions, and peeved. I have wanted to see exactly this service for many election cycles.
http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.php
I will throw in the rule of thumb that I think I picked up from, erm, either
cortezopossum or wrog (both of whom are electionistas in their respective communities), that if a referendum doesn't make any sense to you even after you think about and (if you get the chance) research it, a good rule of thumb is to vote NO.This seems pretty obvious, since the alternative is basically playing a game of "what does this button do?" with your vote, but I hadn't seen it spelled out like that in the past, and I can dig it.
My hope and anger are both rising together as Tuesday draws closer. They are both definitely exceeding levels seen in 2004. I am continually crafting and refining my Schrodinger's Cat of an LJ post for that evening, at once a cathartic victory howl and grave-pissing, and a vomiting of hate-fueled rage calling for the obliteration of the enemy. I will not actually post it because in either eigenstate it's rather horrible, really.
Anyway, I am very excited.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 09:33 pm (UTC)An example: the "eminent domain" proposition, 90, has a good chance of passing. Its supporters go on and on about how it'll stop all sorts of eminent domain abuses from happening again. But it's opposed by everyone from Gov. Arnold to the Sierra Club to taxpayers' associations. Why? Buried 2/3 of the way through, one paragraph says that if govt. regs. reduce the value of someone's property, the owners can sue and demand compensation, even if they haven't sold it--nothing to do with eminent domain, but something that could make it almost impossible to enact any new land use laws. The argument against the measure highlights this problem and describes it in a depth that's impossible in TV ads and unlikely in a mailer.
The sample ballot says all over it that you should mark it ahead of time and take it with you to the polls. It's a good idea to do so, because there are so many candidates. I counted 15 offices and 15 measures that I have to vote on this Tuesday.
Maine had that same type of paper ballot with the fill-in-the-arrow design, and those really seem to make the most sense, provide the best security, and leave the best paper trail. I think one of the objections was that the state would have to print so many of different languages that it would make the system unwieldy.
Parts of California, such as Berkeley, previously used punchcards. Those were truly horrible. I was paranoid enough that even in '98, I'd use the acupuncture technique with the metal pin, though I never checked for hanging chads. In 2001 or 2002, the last time the state used punchcards, I really tried hard to make sure I punched out each square. But upon inspection afterward, sure enough, there was a hanging chad. Gah.