OnlyInThisLight wrote:

MO will probably go for Romney, but I'm voting anyway.  It's my word on the matter no matter who hears it.

Your vote cancels out my mom's vote, and my vote cancels out my asshole sister's vote.

I'm not sure, but many have made that point that voting isn't just about trying to get your candidate to win, but it helps whichever candidate who does get elected know the ideologies of their constituency, basically, how many republicans or democrats are in an area, who cares about what, etc.  It helps give you some visibility.

There's also an element of accountability also. When the candidate is put in power and screws up, you can go around going "Well, I voted for the other guy, not this asshole" and generally rub it in people's faces, instead of being like "Well ... I kinda just let you guys vote it out on my behalf, oops". Satisfying, but doesn't get you invited to many dinner parties, I'll admit. I'm pretty sure that is the primary motivation for much of the UK voting.

Hey guys!

I haven't been here in a long time, but the election reminded me of that old (huge, epic, and amazing) clusterfuck to the white house thread Satyr ran back during the Obama/McCain election so I decided to come check in. Don't know who's still around that remembers me, but hi to you if you do. Hope you're all doing well.

I'm excited for the election, although not so much for my part in it. DC (where I'm at) is electorally insignificant. And even if it wasn't, it's so overwhelmingly democratic that my vote has a 0% chance of being relevant in anything more than a broad philosophical way. But still, I love following this and am looking forward to having the TV constantly on tomorrow.

I'm not a huge fan of either candidate really... but Obama wins my endorsement. I think the health coverage issues he's been pushing are incredibly important. I guess I'm a bit biased, I have preexisting conditions and stuff (although they developed after I already got insurance so I'm ok... but I'd be completely ruined had that not been the case). I just think getting people basic health coverage is a necessity, and I"m not at all opposed to having a strong state when it comes to providing useful services. How you finance it all is a tough question, and I don't really think there's an easy answer. But I think the need to have something like that in place is so great it should be financed regardless, and the "this way or that way" can be sorted out later.

I'm probably a bit closer to the democratic line on some many other issues as well.

Anyways, glad to see that this site is still going strong and, again, best wishes to you all.

Valeli wrote:

I haven't been here in a long time, but the election reminded me of that old (huge, epic, and amazing) clusterfuck to the white house thread Satyr ran back during the Obama/McCain election so I decided to come check in. Don't know who's still around that remembers me, but hi to you if you do. Hope you're all doing well.

And I hope you're doing well too!   The clusterfuck thread was amazing, and I might have done something like it again if I had felt as fascinated by the election as I did in 2008.  This time the election isn't as historic and the contrast between the candidates isn't as sharp.  I think mostly this is because all anyone wants to talk about is the economy but no one has any specific ideas about how to fix it.  It's also partly because Obama is now the candidate in power, and it's turned out that he's absorbed a lot of the policies that he got elected by opposing, so there's less daylight between him and the Republicans.

Nevertheless, I'm likely to have a reply window open here more or less constantly tomorrow night. 

Aine Silveria wrote:

Do I want to vote for either? Not really. But I am, because I cannot in good conscience, in an election that is going to be this close, vote for a third party person.

That's a decision I respect, and it's obviously the best decision if your goal is to advance your policy preferences over the next four years, which is the normal goal to have in an election.  Nonetheless, I ended up voting for Rocky Anderson.  I know that from a policy standpoint, this is tantamount to not voting at all.  But I did what I always do: I picked the ticket that I thought would represent me best.  My feeling is that if everyone voted this way, we'd quickly get more accountable politicians and better policy -- but it's hard to ask others to join me in this doomed and quixotic venture, the same way it's hard to persuade a Democrat in a Republican state that eir vote matters because eir state wouldn't be Republican if all the Democrats would vote.  I am, of course, rooting for Obama; I just wish he were someone else.

I actually only favor Stein and Rocky a smidgen over Obama, and the difference is over things I don't understand enough to have a strong opinion on, and I feel like a Democrat will have an easier time pushing things through Congress than a third party candidate, and there's a track record and some established trust with Obama (as Sat said, maybe the Independents are as free spoken and courageous as they are only because there is no real expectation of winning and thus nothing to lose) so I'm giving him my vote.  I feel that my thought process, at least, combined my desire to vote for someone who matched my ideals while making concessions for the practical outcome of a two party system.

Voted! Thank goodness for daylight savings now that my body is geared to wake up at 7 instead of 8 as usual.

So, definitely voted for Obama. As for Maryland's Question 6, not really sure how that one is going, but the person before me, who was being interviewed by a journalist, said that he's also voting for Question 6. There's also a lady outside passing out brochures to encourage people to vote for Question 6, so hopefully, a good number of people will vote for equality in marriage.

Normal is relative   In Florida, people waited for quite a bit longer than that during early voting -- a combination of reduced early voting days and a ballot that goes on forever thanks to a bunch of stupid and bizarre amendments.  I don't know what wait times are like here today.  There are horror stories coming in from all over the country -- not just about wait times, but about voter suppression, potential fraud... it happens every Election Day, though, and it's impossible to evaluate until after the fact.

I love living in the middle of nowhere. I was in and out in about 5-10 minutes.

No wait whatsoever, but very little to vote on, and the descriptions were pretty vague.  Hoping I made the right decision on some -I wish I had done my homework better.  Derp also half the voting wasn't voting, there was only one candidate XD.

Valeli wrote:

To those of you who happen to live in one of those states, do you have any sense of how those races are going?

DC's not Maryland, and I haven't been following it that closely, but I'm under the impression that the proposal is generally going well in MD. I know the University of MD is having a bunch of support for it at various events, and sending people out to polling sites.

The gay marriage thing is certainly making progress in general, if slowly at times. I'm sure it will eventually work out because, really, there's few people who're /really/ opposed to it imo. A lot of people don't want marriage defined in that way, sure, but fundamentally what marriage means to someone is going to come down to how it's defined in their church/religious organization of choice, and not how it's looked at by the government. The government debate is really much more about just giving people equal rights (mostly.... there's still something to be said for just being given equal standing by the government, but that's not a tangible benefit, and you can already find churches that will look on a gay marriage as a legitimate one).

So people opposed to it are mainly opposed to redefining the concept of marriage (which doesn't have to change for them anyways, as long as they stay in a church that doesn't recognize it), rather than opposed to giving people equal rights. That's my take anyways... I know a lot of people who don't want marriage redefined, but don't know a single person who has a die-hard stance on making sure gay people end up paying more in taxes or having unnecesary legal difficulties.

Don't know if I'm expressing myself very well.

I know many, personally, here in MO.  They are opposed to both the personal redefinition of marriage and the idea of the government allowing any form of gay marriage.  They see it all as a slippery slope, and interpret it all as a part of a larger agenda by democrats and homosexuals to force homosexuality on der childruns.   Then you have those that claim to be supportive of homosexual rights/non-homophobic, but think deep down that homosexuals are just whining and that the right to marry is a stupid thing to fight for.


EDIT:  Also, are we going to be treated to one of Sat's round-up/coverage of the election?  Because I don't know if I can handle being on tumblr during.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (11-06-2012 04:08:41 PM)

I wasn't freaked out by this whole thing until just now. 'cause polls will be closing soon, and once that happens, all this *waves hands in an attempt to articulate cleanly and fails*, this stuff, it's set. And done, and that's when it gets weird and scary for me, especially with reports of voting machines fucking up the votes in Romney's favor.

Aaaaaugh.