Tag Archive for 'vote'

Final showdown

Published
by
Cody
on June 3, 2008
in Political
. 2 Comments

So it would appear that Barack Obama has all but clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. According to the Associated Press, Obama has the most delegates, putting him far enough in front of Hilary Clinton that she will probably concede the nomination sometime soon.

Now it’s Obama versus McCain for the presidency, assuming Ralph Nader doesn’t make a surprise comeback and ruin everything. Again. However, I’ve heard that a strong third party candidate would be more injurious to McCain than to Obama. I guess that remains to be seen.

As to who I’ll be voting for…I’ve decided that in November, I will be voting for Obama. Yes, I know how often I go on about third parties and how I’m not, in fact, throwing my vote away. But when I look at what’s available, I have to say that Obama is a better choice than any of the third party candidates I’ve looked at. The Libertarian Party candidate, Bob Barr, is anything but a libertarian (well, not the kind I am, at least; he even wanted to ban Wicca from the armed forces), Ron Paul is still crazy, and I have yet to hear about any good independents. My favorite candidates (like Mike Gravel) have vanished back into pre-presidential anonymity, so I’m left with a bunch of candidates I can only half-heartedly support.

Therefore, I’d rather put my vote in for Obama. I hate to buy into the “vote for the guy who’s most likely to win” mentality, but he’s the best choice I’ve got.

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Photo ID, please

Published
by
Cody
on April 28, 2008
in Rant
. 2 Comments

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday to uphold an Indiana law requiring voters to present photo identification before casting their votes, thus paving the way for similar laws in other states. Not surprisingly, people complained about it.

From the comments I’ve read, it seems like the general grievance with this is that IDs are not always free. Thus, a person would have to pay to buy an ID just so they could vote, making it an unconstitutional poll tax. However, in Indiana, a state ID is free, so it’s a moot point. The other complaints I read included: voter intimidation, suppression of democracy, fascism, nanny state, and Karl Rove. I’m only partially kidding. Half of the commenters on the Reddit entry for the article I linked to above were calling this a Bad Idea™. I, along with roughly the other half of the commenters were surprised to learn that this wasn’t already required. I’ve never voted in person, as I’ve voted via absentee ballot in the past couple of elections. But if I did actually go to a polling place, I would definitely expect to have to prove who I am.

I honestly don’t see what the problem is here. The right to vote is not being infringed at all. As a few commenters pointed out, every American has the right to buy and own firearms, but no one complains about having to show ID in order to buy a gun. The idea here is to have legitimate people voting. During the 2006 midterm elections (or was it the 2004 presidential election?), King County in Washington had votes coming in from felons and dead people. I don’t know about you, but that seems to be a major problem.

But the main thing to remember here is that the Supreme Court merely opened the door to allowing states to create laws requiring photo ID. As far as I know, only Indiana has such a law, and their IDs are free. I’m all for this ruling as it preserves state’s rights. For you slippery slope people: it’s easier to fight laws on the state level than on the federal level. Interesting stance for a libertarian, isn’t it?

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Don’t shoot me

Published
by
Cody
on February 2, 2008
in Personal and Political
. 0 Comments

Well, I did it. I voted in Washington’s primary. Actually, the primary isn’t until February 19, but using the miracle of absentee voting, I already filled out my ballot. All that’s left is to mail it and ignore the results. Okay, I won’t ignore them. I’ve decided I can’t completely avoid politics, though I still think it’s a waste of time. We should switch over to a parliamentary, proportional representation system and make things more efficient. And fair.

I suppose the burning question is who did I vote for. It may surprise some of you, but I actually voted for John McCain. This is all about the nomination, after all. On the Democrat side, it’s going to be either Obama or Clinton, and I don’t particularly care for either of them. On the Republican side, however, it’s still pretty wide open. I’m thinking it’ll be either Romney or McCain winning the nomination, as Huckabee is falling far behind and Ron Paul is…well, the very definition of “fringe candidate”. So, since I had to choose a party (either Democrat or Republican), I decided to throw my vote behind McCain, since I’d much rather have him as a nominee than Mitt Romney.

Luckily, though I had to basically become a temporary member of the Republican Party for the nomination process, I’m free to vote for whoever I like come November. Washington State doesn’t have party registration, which is nice. The drawback is that we have to pick a single party for the primary and caucus and stick with it. I don’t know if other states do it differently, but I know it’s a rather unpopular policy here. Heck, I might have the whole deal wrong. I honestly don’t know how things work. I just followed the instructions on my ballot.

So, who will I vote for in the election? I don’t know. It all depends on who the nominees are. I highly doubt I’ll vote Democrat, though, unless Mitt Romney gains the Republican nomination. Otherwise, I’ll probably vote for a third party. Or write myself in. I’m kidding about that last part. I don’t want to be president. That is, not until I’ve completed my plans for world domination!

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