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I have to vote tomorrow.
A month ago, I would have told you this was my decision tree for the presidential primary:
1. If Bernie is definitely going to win, vote Bernie, because he'll need as much "mandate" as he can get at that point.
2. If Hillary is definitely going to win, vote Bernie, because I want to keep pushing the establishment as far left as it will go.
3. If there's no clear winner yet, I might have to actually decide who I would rather win, but hahaha, like we'll ever get to late April without a clear front-runner in this race.
UM. WELL THEN. Yay democracy?
Usually in cases where I can't decide on the merits I vote for whoever is not a white straight Christian dude on the basis that they have enough unconscious bias against them that I'm just balancing things out, but. That will not work in this race. Yay democracy?
I think fivethirtyeight has convinced me that actually Bernie's chances of getting a majority of elected delegates nationally is minuscule at this point, so I will probably assume scenario 2 and vote for him, but man, this race.
Downticket I am voting for a senator, a congressman, four circuit court judges, and delegates to the presidential convention. (Most of our state and local races are in off-years, and there are no ballot issues in the primaries.)
Nobody has yet explained to me to my satisfaction what a vote in the delegate races actually means, given that a) the delegates we are voting for are already pledged, but b) the number of pledged delegates sent to the convention for each candidate are determined solely by the presidential preference vote, not the delegate race.
Presumably, if the popular vote went to Hillary but all the delegate races went to pledged Bernie delegates, the ballot papers would catch fire and the state central committee would sink into the Bay.
I may try that this year again.
In the Senate race, there is a long list of candidates, but only two of them have been getting taken seriously. I read over the whole list in the League of Women Voters guide just in case, but they are the only two who know how to punctuate and use a spellcheck, so I think it really is down to just them. They are both current congresspeople from districts close to DC. Both of them have some impressive achievements in Congress and have positions I like OK, and I've heard good things about how they both operate. The white dude with the establishment connections is a fine choice and will probably have an easier time in the general election, but I like the black lady too and the senate needs more black ladies (by which I mean, at least one.)
In the House race, it's our incumbent, who I like okay, and have met several times without ever either needing a shower afterwards or wanting to throw a punch, although I am still a bit dubious about voting for second-generation political dynasties, vs. an eminently punchable white dude who can't write a coherent position statement, so incumbent it is.
The Circuit Court race is theoretically non-partisan sort of. It is four incumbent judges who were appointed by the governor's office vs. three challengers. I have nothing really *against* any of the incumbents, although I have never really been involved with the circuit court, so, if anyone has anything against any of them, now is your chance. They have been going around talking about how they are supported by our current governor, though, and I really really really want somebody to punch him in the face, repeatedly. Also there has been some chicanery about two of the the challengers, who just happen to be the only people in the race who are not white, getting excluded from some of the local Republican candidate events for 'procedural reasons'.
I am probably going to end up voting for everyone whose "equality" position was "we need to do something about racial bias in the courts" rather than "of course you can trust judges to be impartial". Which coincidentally will be the two black challengers and the two white lady incumbents who were appointed by our previous, very-slightly-less-punchable governor.
Isn't democracy fun. I shall reward myself for voting with sweet potato fries from the outdoor food stand next door. And possibly a sausage, if they have sausages there. ^_^
A month ago, I would have told you this was my decision tree for the presidential primary:
1. If Bernie is definitely going to win, vote Bernie, because he'll need as much "mandate" as he can get at that point.
2. If Hillary is definitely going to win, vote Bernie, because I want to keep pushing the establishment as far left as it will go.
3. If there's no clear winner yet, I might have to actually decide who I would rather win, but hahaha, like we'll ever get to late April without a clear front-runner in this race.
UM. WELL THEN. Yay democracy?
Usually in cases where I can't decide on the merits I vote for whoever is not a white straight Christian dude on the basis that they have enough unconscious bias against them that I'm just balancing things out, but. That will not work in this race. Yay democracy?
I think fivethirtyeight has convinced me that actually Bernie's chances of getting a majority of elected delegates nationally is minuscule at this point, so I will probably assume scenario 2 and vote for him, but man, this race.
Downticket I am voting for a senator, a congressman, four circuit court judges, and delegates to the presidential convention. (Most of our state and local races are in off-years, and there are no ballot issues in the primaries.)
Nobody has yet explained to me to my satisfaction what a vote in the delegate races actually means, given that a) the delegates we are voting for are already pledged, but b) the number of pledged delegates sent to the convention for each candidate are determined solely by the presidential preference vote, not the delegate race.
Presumably, if the popular vote went to Hillary but all the delegate races went to pledged Bernie delegates, the ballot papers would catch fire and the state central committee would sink into the Bay.
I may try that this year again.
In the Senate race, there is a long list of candidates, but only two of them have been getting taken seriously. I read over the whole list in the League of Women Voters guide just in case, but they are the only two who know how to punctuate and use a spellcheck, so I think it really is down to just them. They are both current congresspeople from districts close to DC. Both of them have some impressive achievements in Congress and have positions I like OK, and I've heard good things about how they both operate. The white dude with the establishment connections is a fine choice and will probably have an easier time in the general election, but I like the black lady too and the senate needs more black ladies (by which I mean, at least one.)
In the House race, it's our incumbent, who I like okay, and have met several times without ever either needing a shower afterwards or wanting to throw a punch, although I am still a bit dubious about voting for second-generation political dynasties, vs. an eminently punchable white dude who can't write a coherent position statement, so incumbent it is.
The Circuit Court race is theoretically non-partisan sort of. It is four incumbent judges who were appointed by the governor's office vs. three challengers. I have nothing really *against* any of the incumbents, although I have never really been involved with the circuit court, so, if anyone has anything against any of them, now is your chance. They have been going around talking about how they are supported by our current governor, though, and I really really really want somebody to punch him in the face, repeatedly. Also there has been some chicanery about two of the the challengers, who just happen to be the only people in the race who are not white, getting excluded from some of the local Republican candidate events for 'procedural reasons'.
I am probably going to end up voting for everyone whose "equality" position was "we need to do something about racial bias in the courts" rather than "of course you can trust judges to be impartial". Which coincidentally will be the two black challengers and the two white lady incumbents who were appointed by our previous, very-slightly-less-punchable governor.
Isn't democracy fun. I shall reward myself for voting with sweet potato fries from the outdoor food stand next door. And possibly a sausage, if they have sausages there. ^_^
no subject
Okay, now I'm also really confused, I didn't realize it was formatted like that!
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The first ballot item is basically:
Vote for President:
_Jean Bahorel
_Jean Enjolras
_Jean Grantaire
...and then we have the congressional races and so on
and then the last ballot item is
Vote for X number of Delegates to the Convention
_Jean Bossuet (Grantaire)
_Jean Combeferre (Enjolras)
_Jean Courfeyrac (Enjolras)
_Jean Feuilly (Bahorel)
_Jean Joly (Grantaire)
_Gavroche Jondrette (Bahorel)
_Musichetta Jeanne (Enjolras)
_Marius Pontmercy (Uncommitted)
_Jean Prouvaire (Bahorel)
...etc. Usually each candidate has exactly X delegates listed and there are a few listed as uncommitted. The implication is that you vote for your candidate's delegates and then they go to the convention, and so far that has always been how it works, but I have yet to find what happens if it stopped working.
(It didn't work for Trump in some of the republican primaries because apparently Trump voters would rather vote for Cruz delegates than Trump delegates with Arabic-looking names. So it's at least theoretically possible...)
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LOL. Marius would be uncommitted. He'd probably write in Napoleon if he could.
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"Napoleon is the best. What more could we want of a candidate?"
"TO BE FREE."
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Oh my god humans. HUMANS. /o\
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yeah.