stuff you don't know how to vote for

[Dorothy Wood]

there are 68 judges on my ballot, and I have to vote whether or not they should keep their jobs. I found a nonpartisan lawyer group that evaluates the judges and recommends the people to keep and the ones to unseat.

I read all about it, but I don't really understand what all the law jargon means. I made a list of judges to vote to unseat...but I don't actually know anything about them other than they seem inexperienced and this one group thinks they're unqualified. There are 9 on my list.

the tribune suggests the unseating of 4 judges, all of whom are on my list.

I don't know.

I also have to decide whether or not I think we should have a constitutional convention to rewrite the state's constitution. it seems like an alright idea, but it costs a lot of money. I think people want it a lot this year because our governor is an idiot and people want to amend the constitution to say we can recall him. seriously, he's ridiculous. lowest approval rating of any governor in the country.


this topic has the potential to be very boring! sorry!

[Documad]

It varies a lot from state to state because some states allow judges to campaign and in some states they spend shitloads of money and basically buy their seats. In my state, judges are mostly appointed by the governor and then have to run for reelection, but occasionally there is an open seat when a judge steps down in a way there he on purpose doesn't want the governor to appoint his replacement. We have very little advertising for judges' races.

I know a lot of judges. In almost all circumstances, it is smarter to vote for the incumbent judge. Most of the people who run against an incumbent judge are flat out crazy. Some are men's rights' advocates who had a bad divorce and want to change the system. Some are extreme religious conservatives who proclaim some kind of social conservative agenda (which honestly has no place in the decisions that most judges have to make day in and day out--judges should enforce the law not make the law especially when they're at a trial court or lower appellate court level). Once in a blue moon there is a crazy incumbent judge and a good candidate who is running to unseat the crazy judge. Usually you can tell when that is the case because a bunch of law firms will sponsor the challenger and the newspaper will have explained why the incumbent is crazy. But that situation happens once in a blue moon. 99% of the time the challenger is the crazy one. The people who run against the incumbent judges at our state supreme court level are nuts 100% of the time. Incumbent judges have a hard time of it because they can't campaign like the challengers. The incumbent judges aren't supposed to talk about their cases or how they would vote and they're supposed to defend themselves against crazy challengers who promise things to voters.

I will vote for all the incumbents this year. I do have one contest at the trial court level, where there is no incumbent. Both candidates seem qualified, so I'm voting for the candidate I know better (used to work with the candidate when I was in school) even though more law firms are sponsoring the other one.

It's perfectly okay to leave a spot blank. I used to tell my mom to vote for the candidates at the top of the ticket and leave the other spots blank because the other choices stressed her out. I always have a few things that I leave blank.


I almost never vote in favor of a state constitutional amendment or referendum. Amendments are almost always a bad idea. They are usually sponsored by a special interest group and the reasons behind them are not always clear.

For instance, it sounds like a good idea to put a certain percentage of the state income tax away for highway projects (or the arts or the environment) but frankly that shouldn't be in an amendment. The legislature should make the choices based upon the needs at the time and if they make the wrong choices we should kick them out of office. We shouldn't try to tie their hands via amendments. I don't want my state to be like California where the voters are trying to make law piecemeal by referendum.

[Bob]

proposition 3 here is a vote to ban dog racing. i'm not sure what to do with that one. i've heard the arguments on both sides and i've decided that everyone involved in the argument is annoying and i don't trust either of them. i think i'm just going to abstain from that one

i am, however, very sure on how to vote for:
prop 1 to repeal the income tax (that's a no)
prop 2 to decriminalize adult possession of less than an ounce of marijuana (that's a yes)

[Documad]

I think you should vote to ban dog racing. It's awful for the dogs. :(

[kaiser soze]

I really want a greyhound, they are awesome

please vote against dog racing, it is fucking cruel

http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=greyhound+abuse&btnG=Search+Images

[Documad]

Yeah, I have friends who are involved in greyhound rescue.

Bob, a non-vote is a vote to continue greyhound abuse, isn't it? Stop greyhound abuse!!!

[Bob]

alright alright jeez, i'll save the damn greyhounds

[Documad]

Yay. Bob is going to vote for the greyhounds! :)

[Documad]

At the last minute, I decided to have a look at the candidates for the soil and water board. The newspaper had a website where they got to post a little blurb so I figured that I'd find out whether they're generally pro environment or pro big business and that if it was too much trouble I'd just leave them blank on my ballot.

So there were several slots with multiple candidates. When I got to the second guy and read his blurb it started "Marriage is between one man and one woman." I don't know what he thinks that has to do with the soil and water board but I realized that I had to look over the other candidates and vote against the goofy gay hater. Then one of the guys had the same name as someone who I used to work and it described him as an attorney but there was no photo, so it took me about 20 minutes of internet research to figure out that he is a different guy and then I didn't know whether that made me more or less likely to vote for him. :o

[Laver1969]

When I got to the second guy and read his blurb it started "Marriage is between one man and one woman." I don't know what he thinks that has to do with the soil and water board but I realized that I had to look over the other candidates and vote against the goofy gay hater.

Oh...this is easy. Soil represents the woman and water represents the man. And he really wants them to work together. I mean it sounds a little goofy to call it the Soil and Soil Board. :p

[Bob]

i didn't research any of my state + local positions but it turned out not to matter because apart from john kerry's senate race, everyone was running unopposed. i tried to think of some clever write-ins but i had to get to work