Election Day '09 (US)

[Duke87 1,070]

Being an odd numbered year, there are no federal positions up for grabs.

However, depending on where you live, exciting things may still be going on. Virginia and New Jersey both have gubernatorial elections in which Obama has endorsed a candidate, so the nations eyes are on both of those. New York City has its mayoral election, another significant race. My own city (Stamford, CT) has its mayoral election today, and a Board of Ed election that some noise has been made about (see the "The Current State of the American Education System" thread).

Though, regardless of how major, every locality is going to have some positions up for grabs and thus... if you haven't already, it's time to do your civic duty and go vote!

[Meg 368]

I can not tell you how glad I am that election day is here.   I live in Maryland but I watch Washington, DC television stations, which means I have been inundated with ads for the Virigina governor's race, where I am not eligible to vote.  I am sick of seeing these ads!

If I may make a prediction, Bob McDonnell is going to win and it was a mistake on Obama's part to endorse Creigh Deeds. Sad thing is, I doubt that it will have much to do with their positions on the various issues.   McDonnell comes across as a sharp looking man and Deeds comes across as a schlubby, stuttering klutz.

Then there was the issue of the term paper McDonnell wrote back when he was attending one of those religious indoctrination schools where he basically said that women should return to their role as it was a century ago.  (okay, some major paraphrasing there).   When that came out, people were scratching their heads thinking "McDonnell?  Isn't he the one who has been running ads about how proud he is of his daughter's military service in Iraq?"

At this point, I just want it to be over.  I'm tired of watching these two go at each other.

[MattShizzle 11]

I did almost first thing in the morning (after eating breakfast and reading the paper.) Only local stuff here (a couple minor county positions, whether to retain county judges and a school board position.) I'm 35 now and only missed one primary and no general elections since I turned 18.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[aiumkastarkius 0]

I live in New Jersey, and I think that the whole idea of the race here being a referendum on Obama seems pretty silly to a resident. We have a number of New Jersey specific issues flying around, and Corzine isn't really that popular to begin with. People don't like him because he's had to make some tough decisions about our state budget, like raising tolls and taxes. Christie is a bit of a scary guy to me. He has no plan for when he enters office, all he says is that he wants to cut taxes and create jobs. No plan.

Unfortunately I can't vote because I'm not 18... Such a stupid rule

[DCMetro34 576]

I used to live in Asheville, NC and I bet no one turned up for this year's election. There wasn't much hype, the defending candidate is going to win in a landslide.

[MattShizzle 11]

I voted for a guy running as an independant for school board because he spke against and is going to fight the school spending $4 Million on a new sports field. This is a school that has no football (American football. They have a soccer team) team and less than 1000 students. When I graduated in 1992 the computers they had were from the '70s and textbooks were routinely old. The school tax has also more than doubled in 10 years.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

The election here in NJ has really gotten on my nerves, I'm tired of Obama calling me telling us to vote for Corzine, so I'll be glad when its all over.

[rsd6000 8]

i thought its was presdient elections because we already had USA election for presdient? so two elections this year?

[MattShizzle 11]

The presidential election was last year.

[rsd6000 8]

Originally posted by: MattShizzle

The presidential election was last year.quote>

oh yeah but obama didn't went in office till Jan 2009

so  i understand that is local elections at moment

[Kryptowhite 9]

Boston has a huge mayoral election.

Incumbent 16 year mayor Thomas Menino versus Michael Flahrety [spelling].

Menino has been a pretty good mayor but he's been in power for too long, he is incredibly corrupt [he has absolute power over development because of his Boston Redevelopment Authority he started] and builds nothing but crappy 20 story office park stumps. Development is much less about the quality of the project and more about who you know.

For this reason, I support Flahrehty, who is opposed to the BRA.

[Fresh Prince of Wmbg 44]

Originally posted by: aiumkastarkius

I live in New Jersey, and I think that the whole idea of the race here being a referendum on Obama seems pretty silly to a resident. We have a number of New Jersey specific issues flying around,

quote>

 Same down here in Virginia,  my friend. I'm find it stupid that some people are depending on these two gov. elections to reflect on people option of Obama. I'm happy that ts drawing to a  close. BTW for once i actually ok with both Virginia's governortal candidates because "they said" that will improve our energy and transportation needs. But I dislike how the republician candidate considing attacks the democractic candidate in his ads and hide behind his wife and daughter when the democrat attacks back with ad over the republicians view on woman's rights.However the Democrats attack on repulbician energy plan is no better.

Other than that, this was my first time voting. I thought it would more interesting, so I was dissappionted.

[Duke87 1,070]

Well, McDonnell has decisively won Virginia.

New Jersey is being slower about getting their results in. Guess the mafia guys in the back room are still busy filling out spare ballots.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Now we get a 3 month break from political adds before they start up for next year.

[Duke87 1,070]

Aaannnd New Jersey's gonna have a new governor as well, it seems.

Blomberg's winning in NYC so far, though margin's actually fairly narrow.

[Larks2242 251]

Originally posted by: rsd6000

Originally posted by: MattShizzle

The presidential election was last year.quote>

oh yeah but obama didn't went in office till Jan 2009

quote>

That was the inauguration in january.

[Yoman3 5]

I am so sick of seeing New Jersey's ads, it seems the Hudson River doesn't block radio waves. That being said thank god Bloomberg won here.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

One thing about having fixed times for elections is that you know when you get a kick at the cat.  Here we get only one every five years, maybe, or if the government in power is defeated.  Maybe that is one of the things that could be added to your set up.  If a major money bill or a vote of non-confidence is passed in the House, then you can fire the President and his cabinet without further ado, whether the Senate likes it or not.

[sneakeypete 16]

Isn't all that good though, as governments might be tempted to call an early election if they know something bad is coming. State government here in QLD did that. Got back in too, but a month later they announced that they were going to privatise (sell off) the railnetwork, the ports, and a few other things, which made people rather unhappy. (if everyone knew that it was going to happen, i doubt that the government would have got back in with as many seats as it has now, if at all)

[hamsterTK 93]

I was too lazy to change my voter registration when I moved so bummer...

there was some interesting stuff on the ballot for Texas that I actually had an opinion on and wanted to vote over, things concerning eminent domain and land use around military installations.

[confused04 14]

Originally posted by: hamsterTK

I was too lazy to change my voter registration when I moved so bummer...

there was some interesting stuff on the ballot for Texas that I actually had an opinion on and wanted to vote over, things concerning eminent domain and land use around military installations.quote>

I forgot to do that too but Minnesota has same day registration so I got to vote anyway.

My local elections were not terribly exciting. Both mayors of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, R.T. Ryback and Chris Coleman (not to be confused with Norm), but cruised to re-election. Ryback didn't even campaign angering the other 10 candidates. The big news from yesterday was that Minneapolis for the first time used ranked choice voting instead of "Single vote". This meant that you chose your top three candidates. I don't really know if it proved to be a boon for third parties or not but at least there wasn't a primary. Thankfully the vote ran smoothly so hopefully this system is here to stay. Ryback won with 73% of the vote and Coleman won with 68%. Both mayors are DFL.

Across the river in Saint Paul, voters (including myself) chose to adopt this same system with a pretty narrow vote of 53% in favor (needed 50% to pass).

The big news from last night came from the Maine Referendum on the gay marriage law. The voters have overturned the law the legislature and governor passed giving gays the right to marry. I personally don't think issues of civil rights/liberties should ever be allowed to go on the ballot and must remain in the court of law. Can you imagine desegregation going on the ballot? There's a reason why its called minority rights :\.... Very disappointing results out of Maine.

NY-23 also elected a Democrat for the first time in 120 years. This was a result of party infighting between the two predominate wings of the Republican Party. After the Republican endorsed Dede Scozzafava was labelled "too liberal" by conservatives and had her support siphoned off by the Conservative Doug Hoffman, she dropped out endorsed the Democrat. With big names coming in to support Hoffman like Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty, this comes as a big rebuke against the "Teabagging" wing of the party. Had the Republicans been united and stuck with the Republican endorsed candidate to begin with, Scozzafava would have won the election with more than 52% of the vote.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: sneakeypete

Isn't all that good though, as governments might be tempted to call an early election if they know something bad is coming. State government here in QLD did that. Got back in too, but a month later they announced that they were going to privatise (sell off) the railnetwork, the ports, and a few other things, which made people rather unhappy. (if everyone knew that it was going to happen, i doubt that the government would have got back in with as many seats as it has now, if at all)quote>

SOP in Parliamentary Democracies.  Often an election is called by the government when the party in power's backroom boys think the time is ripe.  However, the last time this happened, the Governor General (H.E. Micaela Jean) talked them into a simple prorogue of the House in order to kill a non-confidence motion that was on the order paper.  Sometimes these guys can be out maneuvered.

[Odainsaker 2,133]

Continuing some of the interesting things mentioned on the Texas ballot:

Proposition 1 - A constitutional amendment that would have allowed cities and municipalities to purchase buffer zones around military bases. This was specifically crafted for San Antonio's outlying Fort Sam Houston installation of Camp Bullis, where the U.S. Army conducts nighttime field training for combat medicine. Unfortunately, the rapidly spawling growth of San Antonio's suburbs has finally reached and threatens to engulf the formerly exurban Camp Bullis, with the military decrying light pollution affecting the critical medical training and the destruction of surrounding golden warbler habitat potentially focusing that endangered species and its protections into the training site. Meanwhile, residents to the picturesque new suburbs complain of the training noise and demand that the military be curtailed from their live-fire nighttime exercises. Fort Sam Houston, which is becoming a locus of Federal investment as a top military medical center, has threatened that the encroachment will undercut its mission and force relocation of the post and its jobs away from San Antonio. Developers, however, see prime Hill Country land ready for quick development with little restraint. Ironically, the San Antonio government does not support Proposition 1 and do not plan to use to the tools it will allow, choosing instead to flex the city's rights of extraterritoriality over communties outside its city limits, though I suspect local developer interests had a say in that.

Proposition 4 - A constitutional amendment to move State money into a fund to promote and help finance new Tier 1 research universities in Texas. Unlike sister big states of California and New York, Texas only has a paltry three nationally reknowned research universities--the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, and Rice University. Not surprisingly, Texas is left with a serious higher education gap, which some would like to alleviate by elevating other smaller institutions such as the University of Houston and the University of Texas at San Antonio to Tier 1 status as major research campuses. The Young Conservatives of Texas had pushed against this proposition, arguing that the economic benefits of having top-tier higher education institutions are not proven and not real, though I think they are merely showing how bad the higher education deficiency has become.

Proposition 11 - A constitutional amendment to restrict the power of eminent domain to legitimate public purposes and to bar local governments from transfering seized private land to other private commerical ventures merely to increase the local tax base. This proposition is a direct response to the 2005 case of Kelo v. the City of New London, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that governments such as New London could use eminent domain to evict homeowners and turn their land over to another private commercial developer who vaguely promised the public benefit of economic growth. Hoping to parade his Conservative credentials before next year's gubernatorial election and to head off Republican primary challenges by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has made a point to decry such an expansion of eminent domain powers, going so far as to "sign" the amendment legislation in a photo-op ceremony this past June in front of the revered Alamo in San Antonio. The irony was that for all the pontificating before the Shrine of Texas Liberty, nothing was really "signed"...the legislation passed was to put the amendment issue before the voters on this ballot, an exercise over which the governor has no approval or veto authority or involvement. The signing ceremony behind the proposition was completely bogus!  Perhaps more amusingly, Perry has been the prime proponent of the Trans-Texas Corridor Project, which just might have been the largest and most notorious eminent domain seizure of privately-owned Texas land since, well, Santa Ana!

All the proposition's on the Texas ballot passed.

One local San Antonio ballot measure was also interesting, even if I could not participate. The City of Alamo Heights, a wealthy inner-urban northside community not incorporated into SA, voted on whether to approve funding and construction of a consolidated Public Safety and City Services Complex to replace their decrepit city hall and put emergency fire and police services under one roof. The San Antonio Express-News published beautiful architectural renderings (see plan/images in PDF format) of the proposed center by locally prominent and award-winning Lake|Flato Architects. However, the $10 million price tag threatened a 15% increase of local property taxes for Alamo Heights residents. That one was shot down overwhelmingly, as locals sympathetic to the need still demand a less expensive project with a more subtle financing scheme.

However, the most significant San Antonio vote did not even get to take place...City Council was to vote last week on issuing the first $400 million in bonds to begin the public financing train for the city-owned CPS Energy's expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear power plant near Bay City on the Texas gulf coast.  Currently, two reactor units generating 2,500 MW are in operation at the $5 billion South Texas Nuclear Generating Station, owned by a consortium of public utilities, with San Antonio's CPS owning 40%.  Two additional reactors adding 2,716 MW are planned, with CPS originally hoping for a 50% control stake of the new units, whose cost for construction and financing were projected to reach $13 billion.  As the most fully developed such plan inching towards Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing, this will likely be the first significant new nuclear power plant construction in the United States since the 1970s, and is promoted as ensuring cheap electricity for rapidly growing San Antonio for decades.  However, local utility rates would have to steadily increase and public debt expanded to cover the construction costs.  City Council has directed CPS to seek a mere 20% stake and to find an additional partner to share the cost and reduce the public burden.  Last week, it was revealed that the hidden price tag from Toshiba, who will construct the two new ABWR units, had not been firmly settled, and that Toshiba was asking for $4 billion more than the lowballed $13 billion estimate CPS had revealed to the public and the council.  In the uproar at mushrooming costs and NIMBY blowback, City Council has postponed voting on initiating the financing until January, leaving the milestone project for now in limbo.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

One thing about having fixed times for elections is that you know when you get a kick at the cat.  Here we get only one every five years, maybe, or if the government in power is defeated.  Maybe that is one of the things that could be added to your set up.  If a major money bill or a vote of non-confidence is passed in the House, then you can fire the President and his cabinet without further ado, whether the Senate likes it or not.quote>

Thing is, the US is not a parliamentary democracy, it is a republic. To make elections not fall on a set date and allow them to be called would not only require amending the constitution, but it would basically turn the entire system upside down. We don't have a "you elect the party and the majority party elects a leader" system. We have a "you elect everyone" system. One consequence of this is that congress can be controlled by a different party than the one in control of the White House. This has been the case many times, most recently from January 2007-2009 (Democratic congress under Republican president Bush). It's my understanding that in a parliamentary system that can't happen, or am I wrong? 

Point being, if you let congress "fire the president" for whatever reason they want, you take some control of who's president out of the hands of the people and put it in the hands of congress - which messes with the checks and balances of power in the system in an unpleasant way.

Instead, congress needs to convict the president of a criminal offense to be able to "fire" him (impeachment) - which, by the way, has never happened, and has only been attempted twice.

Our system is different in many ways from most of the others in the modern western world. Its various differences are vital to it working, however, and one cannot just haphazardly agglutinate aspects from the two systems together and create a working government any more than one can take half the code from MacOS and half the code from Windows and put them together to create a working OS - each system works its own discrete way, and they cannot just be mixed and hybridized however you please.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Being an odd numbered year, there are no federal positions up for grabs.

Though, regardless of how major, every locality is going to have some positions up for grabs and

quote>

All "preset" federal, state, and local elections are always the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Two GOP governors, eh?  Obama should be happy that this winter of his discontent is not a presidential election yeaar.  Now that the disapproval vote is in, maybe he will find some way to keep some of those promises he made.

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: krbe

Originally posted by: Duke87

Being an odd numbered year, there are no federal positions up for grabs.

Though, regardless of how major, every locality is going to have some positions up for grabs and

quote>

All "preset" federal, state, and local elections are always the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November?quote>

Not necessarily.  Election Day was established under federal law to be the Tuesday after the first Monday of November for even numbered years.  However, this law only applies to voting for federal positions.  If, for example, Virginia decided to have its state elections in odd numbered years during June, it would be within its right to do so.  Additionally, local elections can be held on different dates from state elections so long as none of the state's voting laws are broken.  The decision to hold state and local elections at the same time as federal elections usually stems from cost considerations and the fact that voting for all the electable officials at one time makes it more convenient for everyone.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: Odainsaker

. . . The Young Conservatives of Texas had pushed against this proposition, arguing that the economic benefits of having top-tier higher education institutions are not proven and not real . . . quote>

   They actually said that?  

. . .  though I think they are merely showing how bad the higher education deficiency has become.quote>

Agreed.  

Although it does speak to one of the conspiracy theories floating around.   Someone around here used to have the signature "The more educated you are, the more liberal you are."   Some studies have found this to be true.  Therefore, as the conspiracy theory goes, it is in the conservatives' best interests to make sure people are not educated.

the economic benefits of having top-tier higher education institutions are not proven and not realquote>

Do you have a link?  I found this rather mindboggling that someone would seriously say this.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Meg Someone around here used to have the signature "The more educated you are, the more liberal you are."   Some studies have found this to be true.  Therefore, as the conspiracy theory goes, it is in the conservatives' best interests to make sure people are not educated.quote>

One could make the argument that more educated people tend to be more liberal not because it's in any way "smarter" but merely because they've had more exposure to generally liberal professors and institutions, and are thus suffering from a bit of indoctrination.

I daresay most people which go to any political extreme are indoctrinated to some degree by some means, regardless of what that extreme is. Or, here, try this as a counterquote:

"Educated people are liberal; smart people are rational"