Please hurry, November 9!

[SirDuff]

You have two choices, vote above the line or below the line. Voting below is how to truly make your vote count, there are of course, a lot more boxes to number.

eta: missed the important info for you doh! Above the line is for the parties. Below is for candidates.

Sorry, I don't get that.

You have more than one candidate per party? Otherwise, how are there more boxes for candidates than there are for parties? Or is it that you can choose fewer parties? Or only some parties are listed (those with candidates in a certain number of ridings/divisions (whatever you call it) or somesuch)?

 

[Turn the Page]

In the United States it's illegal to give anything of value in exchange for voting. I've heard of restaurants offering some freebies for people showing a voting stub, but they stopped after finding it was illegal. Some poll places have even offered food such as cookies, but those are quickly shut down too. Poll places vary - including schools, churches, community centers, etc. Most are in places with reasonably large auditoriums, but I voted once in somebody's garage (I understand some call it a carport). Some of the owners of the polling places have offered food without conditions, but that's not OK.

As for that type of voting, we call that "ranked-choice" voting here in the US. The city of Oakland, California did that for the first time in 2010. This is a mock ballot with faked names, but the county released this image to show how it worked. Even though this particular political office was at the city level, counties in California handle voting with specific precincts that may have somewhat different ballots. My polling place actually handles two precincts.

Oakland actually elected a mayor through this process. They didn't get a majority of first choice votes for the leading vote-getter and went through many rounds. I'm not getting too political, but that mayor was universally seen as ineffective. The last election went through 15 rounds.

https://ballotpedia.org/Oakland,_California_municipal_elections,_2014

That seems wildly inefficient and needlessly expensive. But perhaps I am just not understanding the process.

 

[DisAuntie]

I have seen a particular commercial on TV lately that addresses this but for the life of me I can't remember what show it is for. I think it is for some late night talk show type thing with a female host but I don't recognize her. Anyway, it has her watching a clip of political pundits rehashing the VP debate and commenting that Mike Pence was setting up his presidential campaign for 2020 and it cuts to the host screaming "No!! No we are not doing this!!! We are not starting the 2020 election now!!!!"

I always get a chuckle out of that.

Samantha Bee

 

[hereyago]

Oops disregard

 

[MinnieMouse84]

I voted three weeks ago and I just want the whole thing to be done.

 

[jevs]

Sorry, I don't get that.

You have more than one candidate per party? Otherwise, how are there more boxes for candidates than there are for parties? Or is it that you can choose fewer parties? Or only some parties are listed (those with candidates in a certain number of ridings/divisions (whatever you call it) or somesuch)?

It was damn hard to find any easy to read info without naming political parties.

This may help with understanding https://www.oxfam.org.au/get-involv...iy-campaigning/get-passionate-about-politics/

 

[bcla]

That seems wildly inefficient and needlessly expensive. But perhaps I am just not understanding the process.

Another description is "instant-runoff". The previous alternative when no candidate receives a majority was to physically conduct a two-candidate runoff among the top two vote getters within a statutory period. By design there will be a majority if there are only two candidates, since unfixed or improper ballots are invalid and don't count. That does cost money and typically suffers from low voter turnout. This ranked-choice method works by eliminating the lowest vote getter after each round and then counting 2nd then 3rd choice if a ballot had an eliminated 1st (or 2nd) choice candidate.

The count is done electronically, although I guess a hand recount is a possibility. All the recalculations would be crazy if they had to be done by hand.

We actually did something like this in college for our academic senate. It was really odd too, where we ranked choices from 1 to maybe 12. Multiple candidates would be elected, but every voter only got their vote counted once. It was strangely complicated. They used some sort of elimination scheme to remove candidates who didn't get enough votes, then reassign the lower tier votes.

 

[Turn the Page]

Another description is "instant-runoff". The previous alternative when no candidate receives a majority was to physically conduct a two-candidate runoff among the top two vote getters within a statutory period. By design there will be a majority if there are only two candidates, since unfixed or improper ballots are invalid and don't count. That does cost money and typically suffers from low voter turnout. This ranked-choice method works by eliminating the lowest vote getter after each round and then counting 2nd then 3rd choice if a ballot had an eliminated 1st (or 2nd) choice candidate.

The count is done electronically, although I guess a hand recount is a possibility. All the recalculations would be crazy if they had to be done by hand.

We actually did something like this in college for our academic senate. It was really odd too, where we ranked choices from 1 to maybe 12. Multiple candidates would be elected, but every voter only got their vote counted once. It was strangely complicated. They used some sort of elimination scheme to remove candidates who didn't get enough votes, then reassign the lower tier votes.

Now I understand. When I first looked at it I thought it meant a new balloting had to be done with each "round" of vote counting. This makes much more sense.

 

[Kaytie]

I highly recommend syndicated reruns of Law & Order. There are 20 years of old episodes to draw from. This time of year I load up the DVR with old programming on stations the candidates don't even think to buy spots on. I'm going to save some for inauguration day, regardless of the outcome.

Add in SVU and Criminal Intent and you've got 47 years of shows. Something like 1,048 hours, give or take, not counting the current SVU season. Thirty one days of Law & Orders without commercials. That'll get us almost all the way through November...

The sausage sizzles are usually set up to fundraise. In my area the CFA or local schools may do it. You pay for it, maybe $1 - $2.

Yeah, the only reason I'm hesitating on early voting is the school where I vote has a fund-raising bake sae.

 

[mom2rtk]

Add in SVU and Criminal Intent and you've got 47 years of shows. Something like 1,048 hours, give or take, not counting the current SVU season. Thirty one days of Law & Orders without commercials. That'll get us almost all the way through November...

Absolutely! The only reason they don't spring to mind for me is that I've seen all of both of those franchises but have missed a lot of the original. I'm always in search of "new" episodes.

 

[mrsheppo]

I'm ready to exchange the mailbox with my trashcan. That way I don't have to bring the political postcard crap in the house to throw it away. I had 8 pieces of that junk today. I did my voting today and I just am so sick of listening to all of it

 

[low-key]

godspeed to Nov 9th

 

[Sabeking]

For the first time ever I enjoy the way too early Christmas commercials over this year's political adds.

 

[elphaba91]

They feed you when you vote there?!?!?!?! No, we have no black out period right before the election. If anything, it ramps up the closer we get. Candidates want to try to grab the people who are still undecided.

What is preferential voting? We normally have to go to the polling place and potentially stand in line for hours, punch our ballet, and then we get a nifty sticker that says "I voted."

Not for free. But many schools, etc. will sell sausages and sometimes cakes as fundraisers. It's become quite a tradition to get a 'democracy sausage' that there are even websites to help you find out which polling places sell them!

Preferential voting means you number the candidates from 1 to whatever. Basically it's so people can say 'I don't like party X or Y so I'm voting for smaller party Z' but then their vote actually goes to party X on preferences.

We also have 2 ballots to complete on election day. The ballot for the House of Representatives has about 7 names for the candidate running to be your local member of parliament (MP). There are 150 MPs so to form a majority government a political party needs 76. This can be done through forming a coalition with other political parties, e.g. party X has 60 MPs elected and party Y has 70 MPs elected and party Z has 20 MPs elected but because X and Z are closely aligned they can join together to form government. This, combined with preferential voting, means we can sometimes wait several days for a result.

The ballot paper for the senate is more complicated and they changed it in the last election to make it even more so! The paper itself is over 3 feet long and doesn't even fit in the booth with you properly! Each state gets 12 senators and the 2 territories get 2, meaning that several members from the same political party can run and be elected. You can either vote above or below the line. If you vote above the line it means you are voting for a party and leaving it up to them to decide how your preferences are allocated to individual candidates. You have to put down at least 6 preferences for parties above the line. If you vote below the line it means you allocate at least 12 preferences to individual candidates. Again, this means we wait a ridiculously long time for the results, even weeks. My cousin worked for a senator who they knew would not be re-elected in the last election, but he continued to be paid for ages until the results were finalised.

 

[AquamarineSteph]

I voted early. If we had the option to vote by mail, I would have done it, but there was only a 10 minute wait to vote. BUT then I had tow wait three minutes for the poll worker to GO AWAY so that I could have the pretense of voting in private. I loved the old machines where there was a curtain and you had some privacy when you voted.

But I don't think the crazy will end after election day. I am planning to stock up on wine ahead of time in case that's illegal after the election....

 

[kaytieeldr]

I'm guessing early voting at City Hall here will be the same as absentee voting in person was: there's a small set of voting booths set up in the hallway outside the Clerk's office. Most likely that's the set-up at the two new early voting locations as well.

 

[DawnM]

I don't think the crazy will stop on the 9th.

There are still some "friends" hidden from my feed from 2008. They won't be coming back.

 

[mnrose]

It is interesting to learn which of your Facebook friends apply critical thinking skills, and which (apparently) rely on poorly researched "non-mainstream" media and memes for their information. The internet is a big part of the crazy problem....anyone can create website and say almost anything (both major party candidates eat puppies for breakfast....did you KNOW that?!?!) and there's a certain segment of the population who will believe it and run with it.

 

[mjkacmom]

I voted early. If we had the option to vote by mail, I would have done it, but there was only a 10 minute wait to vote. BUT then I had tow wait three minutes for the poll worker to GO AWAY so that I could have the pretense of voting in private. I loved the old machines where there was a curtain and you had some privacy when you voted.

But I don't think the crazy will end after election day. I am planning to stock up on wine ahead of time in case that's illegal after the election....

We have behind the curtain voting still. I've never waited more than a couple of minutes to vote.

 

[Turn the Page]

It is interesting to learn which of your Facebook friends apply critical thinking skills, and which (apparently) rely on poorly researched "non-mainstream" media and memes for their information. The internet is a big part of the crazy problem....anyone can create website and say almost anything (both major party candidates eat puppies for breakfast....did you KNOW that?!?!) and there's a certain segment of the population who will believe it and run with it.

I really wish people would focus more on promoting their preferred candidate rather than trashing the other one.