Since 1998 Oregon has conducted all of their elections by mail. Registered voters receive their ballots in the mail a couple of weeks before the election and complete them at their leisure. You can mail them back if you finish them soon enough. Otherwise, you can drop them at any of the many drop boxes scattered throughout the city. Sunday night Tina and I sat down at our kitchen table and voted in the comfort of our home. We had done virtually no research prior to filling out our ballots so it took us about an hour. There were a number of ballot initiatives to wade through but the state sends booklets describing each of them as well as all of the candidates. Even though it was a little bit of work, after we were done we felt like worthy citizens.
Richie and Opie are voting for Obama
See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die
Don’t Vote
The New Poll Tax
Rachel Maddow makes a good argument here and a great appeal at the end.
Voting Will Make You Big and Strong
First election, last election
I still remember the first time I voted. Voting in Riceville was always at City Hall, where there were probably two or three booths. The helpful election volunteer explained the whole process and what I needed to do. There were levers, I remember, and there were two big levers. One you could pull to vote all-Democrat and the other you could pull to vote all-Republican. At the time, I thought that was handy but something I would never use. I scrupulously considered all my options for each race and voted according to my conscience. Something I have done in every election since.
But yesterday was different. Yesterday it seemed like there was a message to be sent and the only way for the intended recipients to hear it would be a massive Democratic victory. So I voted Democrat in every single race that had a Democrat running. Now the message has been sent. Will it be heard and heeded?
How was the message sent? Let me count the ways:
- Democrats will now control the U.S. House of Representatives
- Democrats are guaranteed at least a tie in the United States Senate, with a very good chance of taking control (depending on how the recount goes in Virginia)
- Donald Rumsfeld resigned
- Rick Santorum lost
- Ted Kennedy won
- Democrat Ted Kulongoski won a second term as Oregon governor despite heavy negative campaigning by his opponent in the waning days of the election
- 28 states now have Democratic governors
- Four out of five U.S. House seats up for election in Oregon went to Democrats
- Democrats prevail in 10 of 14 Oregon Senate races and retain control
- Democrats win 24 of the 42 available seats and gain control of the Oregon House
- Oregon turnout is expected to reach 71 percent when all votes are counted
- All but one of the state-wide ballot measures went the way I voted
- No local ballot measure I voted against won
There were a few downsides:
- Joe Lieberman won his Senate race. Can his vote be counted on?
- Same-sex marriage bans were approved in six more states. Either people don’t understand the whole freedom concept, or I’m missing something.
- Hillary Clinton won by a large margin possibly encouraging her to run for President in 2008
- Harold Ford lost his Senate race in Tennessee but did you see his concession speech? Wow!
Vote
Vote!
As the old saying goes, vote early and often!