Anyone voting today? I went at 11AM and the lady there stated that today has been a record turn out for all of Houston.
I'll be voting early, although perhaps not today. Early voting is October 18 to 29 this year. Regardless of your political inclinations, get out and vote!
I think all the way up to November 2nd. There are several locations open around the Houston area. The chron.com will show you where to go.
http://www.billwhitefortexas.com/ev/ Find your early vote location and vote now. Even if you're republican ignore the fact that its the Bill White website and find your polling location. Its important that every single person take advantage of the opportunity to vote.
In Washington it's all by mail. We should be receiving ballots in the next few days. I like voting at home. I can take my time and read up on all the initiatives. I know how I want to vote on the top ticket races and high profile propositions, but some of the races are more obscure and I appreciate being able to make informed choices.
I wish Texas did vote by mail. In fact I wish every state did. Every single state that has switched to vote by mail (whether for primaries or the general election) has seen fairly large jumps in turnout. Its silly that state governments are dragging their feet on this.
I'm wondering if they're looking at cost... I mean I'm sure going by mail would be cheaper but you never know.
It's almost certainly cheaper, but some states don't want to make it easier to vote. Maybe they don't want certain demographics with low voter rates to vote in greater numbers. Or they don't want voters having time to carefully select their candidates at leisure. Some voters also have concern with their vote being counted in a mail system. This is a similar concern to voting machines not tallying votes accurately through error or malfeasance. I would like to see ballots get a unique ID that the voter can enter into a state database to verify their results. Obviously you'd have to develop security to ensure people couldn't snoop into others' voting history, but this seems like it would be a trivial matter. There's also some concern about voter fraud. Could voters be stealing ballots to vote multiple times? It probably happens, but in miniscule numbers. I have a lot less trust in possible voter machine fraud. In Washington, you sign your ballot and if the signature doesn't match, it can be categorized as a provisional ballot. There is some debate about whether it's legal to force voters to mail in their ballots. Voting is supposed to be free, and even though the cost of stamps is low, maybe it affects a few poor people. In Washington, you can mail it in or drop off your ballot at designated spots (we have a library close by).
I mailed my ballot in already. Unfortunately out here in California we have the worst batch of candidates from both sides. It really was pretty hard voting on who sucks less. As for all the props I voted No on most of them.
even on prop 19? voted around 11:30 today. i didn't have a long wait, but most of the machines were in use.
What if it's broke? Vote by mail sounds good. Wish they would do it here. I'm in south Austin so I'm planning on picking up my daughter in a little bit and heading to randalls to vote/grocery shop/ get beer for tonights game
haha I said I voted No on most not all of the props.. As for prop 19 I really don't care either way. I don't smoke pot. Never even tried it and I never will. But I talked to a few coworkers who do and looked up some facts about it. I'm convinced it's no more dangerous than Alcohol or Cigarettes and you can abuse any of those things.