So, the election is tomorrow. I've filled out my sample ballot, figured out who to vote for.
This is not a problem on the big races. Governor, Senator, etc. Or even for the middle tier offices - County Commissioner, State Representative, etc. I'm voting straight party line this year, which makes things easier, but even were the Republicans not the handsmaids of Satan and one or two of them worth voting for, the information is easy enough to come by to make a choice.
No, the problem are the bottom tier races. I hate choosing between two candidates for, say, a municipal judiciary post, without having a clue who either of them is. I really hate that. At least back in California the sample ballots used to come with little statements from all of the candidates. Here it's just a name. In some of these cases I hadn't even seen them on yard placards or anything. Just two or three or four mysterious names that I am somehow supposed to choose between.
And I know thousands of other people are doing the same thing.
School Board. How am I supposed to know who these people are? This year I'm mostly going with the endorsements of the Washington Post, but then they also endorsed Bob "White Country Club & Slots" Ehrlich, so it's not like they're a good bellweather. Some of the names have information I can google to and form an opinion, but a good half dozen of them are just names. I don't want to accidentally vote for some bible-thumping crazy.
Heh. I said something to that effect to a former coworker who responded "you mean you don't want to accidentally vote for some godless atheist." It threw me - I mean, I knew the guy was a conservative, but to actually realize he preferred a school board staffed by religious snapcases who wanted all the children dutifully praying to their God... frightening.
How awesome would it be, by the way, to actually have to worry about atheists on the school board? By which I mean, I don't want my kids, or anyone's kids, being taught what they should believe in school. But religious freakshows are a dime a dozen, always running for school board, trying to push their particular belief system onto everyone else. I have yet to hear about a virulent, Madalyn Murray O'Hair sort of atheist getting onto any school board at all. It would be refreshing to actually have to worry about that extreme rather than the other.
Anyway. This jurisdiction needs to publish a candidate's gazette - each candidate for any office, be it the records clerk, dog catcher, whatever - and that records clerk was one that did throw me on the primary - and in that gazette have a statement by every last candidate. I make an effort to be an informed voter, which is more than many of my fellow voters do. And I nonetheless usually find myself having to guess at least once.
But, at least for tomorrow, I've got it all figured out.
As for the national races - I'm not optimistic. The Republicans are just too scummy, too willing to do anything at all to win. In Virginia they are calling people and telling them that their polling place has been moved. Yes, with the goal of sending them to the wrong place. There is no low to which the Republicans will not stoop, and what with the automated voting machines making it so easy...
I'd like to see a Democratic Congress. But I'm too beaten down to dream. So I'm not going to. I'm going to not watch the news tonight; instead I will go to bed early with my book on Dark Ages Britain. Wednesday will be what wednesday will be.
- Sun Ra