I am just curious on how the people on clutchfans vote. Do you vote along party lines? Or do you actually look at the candidate, hear what they stand for and make a decision based on the person rather than party affiliation. Most people I know just vote along party lines without ever hearing what the other side has to say. I admit I lean towards Republicans but I have voted for a few Democrats before. I am also curious on the percentage of people registered with a certain party but is open to vote for someone else.
I go into the voting booth with a list of the candidates that are on my ballot and vote for the ones I marked previously. Case by case basis, but lately it has been a nearly even split between the Democrats and Libertarians.
90% of the ballot has people folks have never heard of before running for offices folks don't give a damn about. So, it probably makes sense to vote on the basis of party affiliation. I vote on the races I know something about either for the candidate I like or against the incumbent I dislike. If I recognize an incumbent's name, I usually will vote against them. Then I abstain from all the races I don't know anything about. I don't have a party affiliation. But, I love the propositions. I usually research those before the election and decide which way I'll vote on those before I go to the polling station.
Interesting how you are split between Democrats and Libertarians. What issues attract you from the Libertarian side? I am sure they are social issues? Since the Democrats and Libertarians vary greatly on economic and spending issues.
The same issues that used to attract me to the GOP are the ones that now cause me to vote Libertarian. I am a fiscal conservative with a sense of social justice, so I lean a bit left on social issues and a bit right on fiscal issues. I wish the GOP would ditch the crazies and actually do what they say they stand for so that I could start voting Republican again, but I don't suspect that will happen for a while yet.
I vote based on the principles and ideals I believe in. I research the candidates and whoever most closely matches, I cast my vote for them.
Depending on how much time I have and how important the race is, I try to study the candidates and their positions before making a decision. The vast majority of the time this leads to a decision to pick the democrat. For the cases where I have very little information, sometimes I don't vote and sometimes I vote for the democrat. To me, it's justified because when I do study the candidates and their positions I overwhelmingly support democrats, so without any information it is a safe statistical likelihood that the democrat would have been my choice. I don't think voting straight down the party line is actually as bad of a thing as people make it seem, at least when the party platforms of those running is known. The problem is when you don't keep yourself informed and you end up voting for the party without paying attention to the latest events and issues. It also doesn't work so well when there are third party candidates in smaller elections, since it is quite possible they will field better candidates but voting strictly along party lines excludes them.
It depends on the election. I will vote case by case. If the incumbent is someone I know about I will vote for or against regardless of party. The deeper elections often break down to: knowledgeable about - educated vote,fuzzy - word association (where I might not know why but I have a positive or negative reaction to a name so know that at some point heard or read something), both complete unknowns - fallback voting system. This can be similar to JV in that I will be more likely to vote out an incumbent or I might do what I did often last election - vote for the woman or minority. WASPs have plenty of experience screwing up, so I figure we might as well let others screw up, too.
agree with you on your points. It's a shame people always try to label liberatrians as wackos. I think they are the only ones making any sense now. I think both parties have lost their ways and the people we have in congress need to go. I do wish the GOP can actually do what they stand for.
The biggest area where the Libertarians are dead on is in their assessment of corporations and the say that those companies should have in the political process.
I just vote for propositions and the larger races. If I dont know the candidates I just leave them blank usually. I dont really feel comfortable just randomly picking someone. And I refuse to vote for judges (which seem to fill up most of the ballot). The very idea of electing judges is one of the most inane things I've ever seen.
I'm a registered Independent, the Minnesota Independence Party (Jesse Ventura's party) and have voted for them party line but I generally take the time to read up on candidates positions before I vote.
I split tickets when I was younger. However, since the Clinton impeachment travesty and the nightmare that was the W administration and the absolutely loony positions espoused by current Republicans, I can't see voting for anyone who is going to be beholden to even a whisp of current Repub orthodoxy. Until real Repubs take back their party from the crazies, it is too dangerous to vote for any Repub. Even if there's a sane one, the damage they'd do by supporting Repub leadership and enabling the wingnuts is too much.
I can't vote yet, but if I did I would probably check out the candidate's views and vote for the one I most agree with(which would be a member of the Dems, Green, or CPUSA parties but not all the time)
By that logic, no one should vote. And if no one votes then nothing would get decided w/o having a dictatorship. Thank God not everyone thinks like you.
That is true and at an aggregate level voting matters. However it is very hard to justify voting on an individual level unless you enjoy it or something like that.
