This morning I casually filled out the front page of my ballot. Well, somewhat casually. I have some slight OCD, so I was extremely slow in making sure I filled in the ovals entirely, but within the lines, and then in double-checking that I voted for the candidates I wanted. An easy page--all recognizable names and people I planned on voting for, and at the very least there were party affiliations listed, anyway. As I was ready to go, I flipped the ballot over, only to discover entirely more ovals to be filled out.
This side was a little harder. I recognized at least two things from this side (school referendum and sheriff), and knew nothing about anything else listed. However, among my OCD fears is that if I leave a single position unfilled, my vote won't get registered (I'm also worried that the St. Paul school referendum on the back had the same "not voting counts as a 'no' vote" stipulation as the transportation amendment on the front and that people will forget to do it). So how does one decide who to vote for judges one has never heard of? How do we even know what a soil and water commissioner does, much less know whether one randomly named person would do a better job than another randomly named person? Well, there are a few ways to make a decision.
1. Incumbents. If this is listed, you can vote for or against those already in office, depending on how you feel about the way things are.
2. Gender. Like my wife, if I don't know the people, I tend to vote for the woman. There are far more men in power in this country than women, so it is a semi-legitimate, quasi-informed way to make a vote that would otherwise be randomly based on the order the candidates are listed or the sound of the names. Which brings us to...
3. The names. I didn't vote for one woman just because her last name was "Reagan": I didn't like the association. You can choose names you like, names with letters you like, long names, short names, names of people that sound like nice people, or any stupid thing like that. Or...
4. The order the candidates are listed in. Do you feel people listed first might have an unfair advantage? Then vote for the person listed second.
5. You could play a childish game, with some stupid little rythmic, rhyming expressing as you bounce your finger back and forth between the names. This leaves your vote entirely up to fate or hazard (as you prefer).
6. You could not have OCD and leave the oval unfilled.
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I totally agree with you about the OCD-like (maybe real OCD; I'd rather not seek a diagnosis) checking and re-checking, oval-checking, and fear of leaving an oval unfilled. That's me too.
ReplyDeleteOn my side of the river, we had several Soviet Politburo-type races (judges? I forget), with incumbent candidates running unopposed. I felt compelled to neatly fill in their ovals too.
Yep, I fill in the ovals of the unopposed candidates too. One time I rebelled and made my friends write-in candidates, but this year there were people waiting and I had been in there slowly filling in circles a long time anyway.
ReplyDeleteI just left all the judge ovals blank. I don't know anything about the court stuff. . . Is that terrible of me? I'm going straight to hell -- or a split level in Fridley-- for punishment.
ReplyDeleteI voted for all the unopposed candidates, too. I found that to be the easy part, and I used it as time to put off having to choose between two candidates I had never heard of.
ReplyDeleteLast time I voted, I recognized a judge's name: Alan Paige (sp?). I thought, "If I recognize his name, he has probably been in some scandal." So, I voted against him. Oops. He still made it, so no worries. But he wasn't on the ballot this time; did he decide not to run, or was his position secured last time?
I was very disapointed that I didn;t get the "I Voted" sticker. I walked around all day, thinking everyone was judging me for not voting. But just so everyone knows I voted!! I actually had to do an absentee ballot, which really isn't that thrilling to fill out compaired to going to the polls.
ReplyDeleteI voted for Papa John Colstad here in Bemidji. How could I not? Papa John?!
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