Voting for Something
Idaho’s holding its primaries today, so I vote again for the first time in what? A week? Considering the expense, it seems like combining the primaries and last week’s issue would have been a wise choice. Maybe then there would have been something better than the 11% turnout of last week. Like maybe the 27% turnout expected this week. Hooray for democracy inaction.
Having come from California, voting in Idaho is interesting. There are various polling places and you can vote at any of them. I assume somebody actually checks to make sure you don’t vote at all of them. If, like me, you’re a democrat, you get to do write-in votes for most positions. Now that’s a sign of a healthy two-party system, isn’t it? Maybe if they published a voters’ guide so that we actually knew what the various candidates had to say about themselves, more people might get out to vote. At the moment, you just base your vote on word of mouth and the attack ads that fill the op-ed section of the local papers. My preferred method of choice is to vote for whomever has the lowest tally of attacks.
Update: I voted, now what? My votes were cast in ignorance (see lack of voters’ guide above), so I chose the first candidate listed in each choice. Way to go, voting by alphabetical order! As a democrat, half the positions were write-in, so I voted for myself. Hopefully I’ll win. I’d really like to be whatever it was that I chose. County commisioner? County clerk? County coroner? Whatever, I’m sure it will be exciting and I will fulfill my duties with all of the thought and effort I put into my write-in campaign. That is, none whatsoever.
