When you vote today, make sure you leave no item unchecked.

[Beastly Boy]

Senator, House member, state legislator, judge, dog catcher, vote for everyone running! And don't forget to vote on the propositions.

This time, more than ever, it matters.

[Mister Ed]

1. School board.

Where I live, we had five sane candidates and four MAGA candidates for school board. It's hard to get the information you need to sort them out, but it's very important.

In my case, I was able to make the distinction by consulting actively progressive neighbors, and by checking to see who the teacher's union had endorsed.

[sop]

2. Local Democratic Party organizations publish detailed voter guides for judges and propositions.

Few voters know which judges to retain and/or vote for, and ballot measures are often intentionally written to confuse voters.

[we can do it]

3. I refuse to vote for r's when unopposed.

[BlueIdaho]

5. THIS!

I will not vote for any Republican - ever.

[Buns_of_Fire]

7. A couple of the (R) state positions here (GA) were unopposed.

I left them blank. The thought flitted across my mind to write-in somebody appropriate -- like John Wayne Gacy -- but I thought better of it. Being in GA-14 (Margie the Kook's district), I didn't want to give anyone any excuse to toss my votes for Abrams, Warnock, or Flowers.

[mercuryblues]

18. I always go with Daisy Duck

[Beastly Boy]

10. In most states (maybe all, I am not sure), you have a write-in option

[we can do it]

12. Waste of time.

[Beastly Boy]

13. It is, except

your vote will count, and it will not count as a vote for a Republican.

[we can do it]

14. Neither will leaving blank.

[Beastly Boy]

15. Whatever you leave blank doesn't count for anyone

Your write in counts for the person you wrote in.

Doesn't affect the outcome one way or another, but as a matter of principle, you cast your vote, and it wasn't for the republican on the ballot.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

16. In KY, you can't write in some random name; has to be a candidate who filed as a write-in.

[Poiuyt]

4. Unfortunately, my Republican Congressperson is running unopposed

[Wednesdays]

9. Do you have a write-in option?

[Emile]

6. If you vote straight ticket do not vote for unopposed republicans.

Don't give them a reason to cancel your ballot!

[catbyte]

8. I always vote a straight party ticket then I can jump to the non-partisan part of the ballot.

It saves a lot of time and eliminates the chance of mistakes. I've only voted for one RepubliQan in my life and that was in a local election back in the mid-1980s so why bother filling in all those little bubbles? The MIGQP tried to eliminate straight-ticket voting here in 2016 as a way to suppress the black vote in Detroit but it was declared unconstitutional and straight-ticket voting was made permanent in 2018.

[ForgedCrank]

11. Some of

the spots are sometimes unopposed Republicans. It happens more often than it should. Even though I know the outcome, I always leave them blank anyway. I refuse to drive their numbers up, so I skip over those if they are on there.
But I get your point for sure, never skip any of the choices, they are all important.

[Towlie]

17. I never vote for judges because it's stupid for them to be elected.

 
?

How the hell am I supposed to know which candidate is the best choice? They don't have differing platforms that I might like or dislike, they only have one job, which is to conduct a trial properly and deliver the required verdict based upon the facts.

[jmowreader]

19. I left quite a few things unchecked

All the races where a Republican was running unopposed got no mark from me, and there's a whole column of those on the ballot.

However, I voted for all the Democrats running - and, strangely enough, there are a BUNCH of Democrats running for office in Idaho this year. I really hope Kaylee Peterson, who is running against the Trumpist Russ Fulcher for Congress, comes out ahead. She's a nice person who will do well in Washington.

The important races were on the back side of the ballot, and I voted that first. Our local community college's board of trustees has three rational Republicans running against three hand-picked-by-Brent-Regan fascists - one of which is using "Make NIC Great Again!" as his campaign slogan. Those were the only Republicans I voted for because, as you can imagine, we need to do everything in our power to limit Brent Regan's hold on the state. They've got two constitutional amendments both of which I voted against, one to allow the Legislature to call a special session without the governor's input (as it now stands, only the Idaho governor can call a special session of the legislature) and another to change the state income tax to a flat tax. Gee guys, you want me to vote to both raise my own taxes and to make it so we have to have levies to keep the lights on in the courthouse? I think not. And of course there were all the judge elections; since no one ever runs for judge in this county unless an old one dies, and the judges we have do a decent job, I voted "retain" on them all.

Now for the FUN election in North Idaho, which I didn't get to participate in. There's this asshole named Scott Herndon running for the state senate in Bonner County, which is the one north of me. Herndon has two planks in his campaign platform: abolish abortion in the state - which it basically is anyway; everyone who needs an abortion in North Idaho crosses the state line to Washington and gets it done in Spokane...and sell off the public lands to the highest bidder. One of the reasons we have such a brisk tourist trade in Idaho is all the public land we have. And since tourism is North Idaho's number-one industry, selling the public lands would kill the economy. But this is the guy who attempted to kill off the Festival at Sandpoint music event a few years back by trying to force them to allow guns on the Festival grounds. LOTS of musicians who have played and will play the Festival have clearly stated they won't appear if there are guns in the audience...and the Festival sells alcoholic beverages. There's a really good write-in candidate who I think will win.