So, the ballots have finally landed here on Grubb Street for the 4 November election. It is an off-off-year election, which means in general that things are pretty quiet. Now, we are electing a Mayor in Seattle (which I can't vote for) and a new County Executive (which I DO vote for), but there are not a lot of races this year, and many of them (local races, judges) have no listed opposition.
One thing that is a new wrinkle, though, is the strong recommendation you get your votes in early this year, particularly if you are mailing them in. Mail-in ballots are great, because you aren't stranded in a voting booth wondering who the heck these people are. However, the Post Office has been gutted in recent years by stupid conservative policies, which consists of gutting a public service and then complaining that it can't do its job. But what this means in this case is that if you drop your ballot in the mailbox on November 4, there is no guarantee that it is going to be postmarked in time. And the postmark is the final line.
So, either vote early, or drop it off at one of the many handy drop boxes we have in King County by 8 PM on the 4th. Of course, as a result of stupid conservative policies, this one hurts areas (mostly rural) that don't have accessible ballot drop offs, and where conservatism is stronger. So it hurts themselves, so you should vote early in any event.
This year is also different in that I have received a huge number of mailers. which range from brightly colored declarations of why you should vote for me, to somber, red and black warnings about how horrible the other candidate is (often on opposite sides of the same mailer). In particular, I got a set of identical mailers for me, the Lovely Bride, and both of us from a bunch of 2nd-place candidates in Burien who have unified under the "Enough is Enough!" banner (As an aside, I don't live in Burien, and cannot even see it from my house). The fact that this organization is wasting money sending mailers to people who cannot vote for them indicates to me that no one should trust them with their communities' money. And yeah, this is another dig at stupid conservative policies. Not really stupid, but definitely incompetent as well.
I'm going to roll through my ballot in the next few days. I WON'T be covering races that have only one candidate, which this year is goodly number of positions, including the Mayor of Kent, the three Port of Seattle positions, one of the City of Kent Council Positions, some judges, and the Water/Sewer and Hospital district commissioners. So you lot can take a long lunch hour to celebrate, then get back to work.
Those voting should also have gotten Voters' Guides for King County (the thick one) and Washington State (the skinny one). They can be found here as well, which allows you to see pro and anti statements on the ballot measures as well as the candidates presenting themselves in their own words.
Should you vote the way I indicate? Of course not! Here are a bunch of other folk's opinions. Here is the Seattle Times. Here The Stranger sounds off. Here is the Urbanist's recommendations, and here is a listing for the progressive FUSE site. For the kids, here's the UWDaily's notes. Crosscut, which has posted in the past, no longer has the manpower to muster any opinions. See earlier comments on stupid conservative policies.
AND you don't even have to wait for me to wade through all this. Go grab you ballot by the ovals and go vote. Time is surprisingly of the essence!
More later,
