We had a lot of fun yesterday our Precinct 377 get out the vote party. Precinct Chair Joan McMillan did a great job organizing the event and getting candidates to come out. The kiddos seemed to enjoy it too:
Today the real fun begins – we get to rush to the polls to hopefully end the four year nightmare known as the Obama administration. Call your friends, enemies, neighbors, relatives, call ANYONE that is registered to vote and remind them that they can help turn this country around. If you can, volunteer at one of the Victory 2012 phone banks or find a candidate to help. Every vote is needed and every vote counts. Click here for a list of early voting locations – remember, you can vote at ANY location during early voting but if you wait until election day, you MUST vote at the location specified for your precinct. Here are the hours for early voting:
- October 22 – October 26: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (first week, Monday – Friday)
- October 27: 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. (Saturday)
- October 28: 1:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. (Sunday)
- October 29 – November 2: 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. (second week, Monday – Friday)
Why vote straight R? The easiest reason is that under Republican leadership, Texas’ economy has led the nation. Think very hard before you choose to dismiss that one. It doesn’t matter what level a race is, don’t you want to be part of a winning team?
Besides which, you are kidding yourself if you are one of those people that say you research every candidate and make the best possible choice. Utter nonsense. Few people have the time to do that and even those that do have the time find themselves limited to information that others have collected, put their spin on, then presented it as “objective”. Obviously, there may be times when you need to cross over and vote for a single candidate of the other party because of corruption or incompetence or they are your relative or whatever but those few races are well publicized and/or well known. I’ve done that before and I’ll do it this year. But the single best thing to do to ensure that the candidates you vote for represent your overall views is to ask yourself which party you most identify with, given their platform and philosophy, and then vote that ticket. And for me, that choice is clear – Republicans on the whole are much closer to my individual political philosophy.
But, but, what about judges, you ask? They aren’t part of any team and party influence doesn’t matter in court. True and that is why it is even more critical for you to ask yourself – why would a person that wants to sit in judgement over people self-identify with a platform and party that doesn’t come close to my values? In my case, why on earth would I in a million years want to vote for a judge that runs under the banner of a party that supports bigger government, redistribution of wealth, non-traditional family values, thinks that law should be interpreted differently than intended, and calls for a free-for-all, no restriction abortion policy?
So do us all a favor and vote straight ticket Republican – as a side benefit, you’ll get in and out much quicker.
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Just voted. First we went to West Gray, Metropolitan Service Center. Lines curve around and fold back on themselves. Don’t bother. Nice to see Judge Debra Mayfield and Rep. Sarah Davis.
Then, we went to Holy Name Catholic Church, on the Near North Side, on Marion, at Hogan.
Polls close at 4:30 today.
There were 21 machines in use, (3 on the rack, unopened.) 2 JBCs, 2 scanners to check voter registration and print the labels. I think if I were in charge of that location, I would put a clerk on the line, checking people’s IDs, just to ask if they still lived there, if they were going to need help, answering questions, etc. The holdup is the SORs, Provisional Voters, etc. At times, many booths empty, due to backup at check-in. One poll watcher.
We did vote. Glad to get it out of the way.
voted today. West Gray. Parking Lot Full. Both Rooms packed. Had to wait at 8:30 am for 5 minutes to get access code and a minute to get in booth. Great to see Rep. Davis there.
There are some down ballot races this time around where the (D) candidate is much more qualified than the (R) candidate. I wont get into specifics here because I am not in the endorsement business. However, Voting straight ticket is the easy way out, most of the time. I certainly understand voting for one party over the other when in doubt over a candidate, but doing research on significant races that are important to you and candidates that can have an impact on your life is simply being an informed voter and short of being a political “insider”, no one will ever know everything about every candidate.
Perhaps the best suggestion is to get a sample ballot, do your homework and THEN go vote. Don’t vote blindly, one way or the other just becasue someone recommends you do so. Its almost as ignorant as not voting at all.
Matthew, here is the problem: “do your homework”. How? Young Conservatives scorecard? Houston Bar Association?
Problem is that “do your homework” sounds great but is too hard to actually do for 99{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the population. Work, kids, church, life – so we don’t “do our homework” and take advice from friends, etc. It is much better, IMO, to use the principles espoused in a party platform to choose UNLESS there is a specific race or two where the other guy is demonstrably better qualified.
And you know what makes it even harder? When people say, as you did above, “I wont get into specifics here because I am not in the endorsement business.” – but say that so and so candidate from “the other party” is “better”.
I can’t think of a single race where a Democrat is demonstrably better than a Republican – some are perhaps “as good” but none “demonstrably better”. And yeah, I’m one of those that has the time and have tried to “do my homework”. People voting for friends or incumbents and ignoring principle have not done our country a great deal of service.
Just my two cents.
If the other candidate is so great, why is he on the Democratic ticket? In order to be there, he has to swear to uphold the Democratic platform.
Dave,
I was pretty much agreeing with some of what was in your post, but I guess it got lost in written translation. While I agree with the “mantra” of voting party lines when there is doubt or ambiguity, I think that being informed is a much better practice than blindly voting (R) or (D) straight down the party line. While I agree that candidate research is very hard, it is not impossible and is so very necessary in today’s age of negativity and attack campaigning. It’s the system we have given ourselves.At some point you have to wade through the garbage and embrace the complexity of it all.
I, too, crossed over party lines and voted for a few (D) today because I thought they were more qualified for the position they were seeking. Simply being a member of one party or the other doesn’t make a candidate any less qualified. There is so much more to it. It’s all about their record (when they have one to look at) and what they offer that the other candidiate does not. I think “pindlow”‘s comment is short sided.
All things said, there was a HUGE turnout again today at the W. Gray multi-service center.The line was very long, but moved a good pace. It was WELL WORTH the wait. As long as people turnout in droves like they are experiencing over there, it shows that people are not taking things for granted, exercising their rights and performing their civic duty. A good day, indeed.