I’m attempting to post a brief meditation on the daily quote from my Election Day advent calendar. Today brings us:
You’re not to be so blind with patriotism
that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong,
no matter who does it or says it.
Malcolm X
Straight ticket voting. Malcolm X was talking about much loftier ideas than straight ticket voting, but that’s what was on my mind during the dog-walk this morning.
In Harris County, you can hit the straight ticket button, but a few things you should know if you do:
- All of the ballot initiatives and bonds are nonpartisan, so if you select straight ticket and then cast your ballot, you have not voted on any of those.
- You can select straight ticket, but then scroll through the ballot and change your vote in individual races.
I vote the person and not the party. I tend to align with the Democratic Party, but on this year’s ballot, I voted for several Republicans (good and honest judges who are exactly the kind of people I want on the bench, and getting rid of partisan judicial races can’t happen soon enough in this state), and picked several races in which I cast no vote.
If you are a sentient being, you should not vote for Lloyd Oliver for District Attorney. The man is a loon, best known for his insultingly sexist and dangerously ignorant comments about domestic violence. Here’s a great blog post on the many reasons the man deserves to lose. Hint: the fact that he thinks “boxing lessons for the ladies” would solve the problem is actually nowhere near the most offensive thing about him.
