Saw something truly amazing this morning while voting.

[redstatebluegirl]

I live in a VERY red state, Oklahoma, in a VERY red precinct. This morning while I was waiting to vote I overheard an elderly man ask an election judge how you "split the ticket". He went on to tell her he had always voted a straight republican ticket and had no idea how to vote otherwise. She explained to him how to go down the ballot and vote for each race individually. He smiled, took his ballot and was behind the little boxed in area for quite a while. He then came out with his walker and deposited his ballot in the machine.

I was done voting and followed him out. I asked him if I could ask a question and he said yes, I asked him why he was changing the way he voted and he told me he had "had enough", whatever that means. I can only hope he voted against Mary Fallin for governor and against the nut we have for a state representative, but I'll never know.

With all of my canvassing this year and now this, I have at least a glimmer of hope that things may change. If it can change in this area it can change anywhere.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. That's great. I hope that it means things are changing for the better!

[frazzled]

2. Very few states even allow straight-ticket voting

Only 15 do. I'm glad you heard someone who decided to think each race (and I hope he was picking the Democrats for the races that counted!).

Today, I wish our state allowed straight-ticket voting. Our ballot was super-long and it got very tedious. In addition to all the state and federal offices and Cook County offices and Water Reclamation District (pick three!) and judicial vacancies, plus a significant number of referenda, there were an additional 73 judicial retention choices. I probably should have just marked the 6 NO votes I had and left the others blank, but I felt I needed to mark each one for yes or no. It took a really really long time to finish connecting all those arrows!

[2naSalit]

4. Such is often

the point in horrendously long ballots. Good on you for going the distance!!

[redstatebluegirl]

5. It still took a while if you checked straight ticket Dem here.

Lots of judges and a few other things on the ballot. What happens a great deal according to friends of mine in the election offices is people who vote straight ticket DEM or REP don't vote for the judges or anything else thinking they are finished. Scary I know, but it happens a lot.

Our judges were important this time because the religious right, Baptist Churches (same thing), are on an all out war against a female judge who married a gay couple right after it was made legal by the court. Signs all over town with a slash through her name meaning don't vote for her. I voted against all of them EXCEPT her .

[frazzled]

6. Good for you!

I live in an extremely blue district, in the center of the City of Chicago. Many downticket races were Democrats running unopposed, and the judges, though their affiliation is not listed, are mostly Democrats. Which doesn't mean they're all good (either in terms of management of their court, judicial demeanor, knowledge of law, etc. That doesn't even include ideology.)

I used a rule of thumb for voting against a judge: if they were "not recommended" by the African American, AA Women's, Hispanic, and/or GLBT Bar Associations, I voted NO. Though it doesn't really matter. Because people don't vote these races, and it takes a certain percentage to kick a judge out, I don't believe a judge has EVER been removed over the past three or four decades.

Sigh. I still do it anyway, just to feel better.

[KingCharlemagne]

3. "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people

all of the time. But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

~Abe Lincoln