I Voted. Did you?*

[johno]

20080205-140521-v705a
Originally uploaded by JohnO.

I was number 67 in to the machine at my polling place**, shortly after noon.

I commented how disgusted I was at such a low number.

The Precinct Captain responded that our area has lots and lots of mail in ballots.

Edit to add:

* If you are in the US in a state holding primaries today. Actually in California there are 7 state props and my county has 2 local props on the ballat, so it's not just primaries to vote on.

** My county went back to paper going into OCR machines. One per precinct station. No clue how many folks are in my precinct.

Comments

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

I voted, but didn't think to ask what number I was. There were no others using the booths, but a couple of people dropped off the mail-in ballots while I was there. One had extras (in CA you can be an "authorized person" to drop off ballots of close relatives and/or people living at the same address.)

I believe that my county has over 50% of the people on "Permanent Ballot-By-Mail" status, and I'm considering it myself. For a primary (which typically has low in-person turnout), I think the mail-in ballots boost participation.
For myself, I miss an election about once per decade (sudden illness or trip with no time to arrange absentee ballot, that sort of thing).

I do not, however, go out of my way to encourage people to vote just to get the numbers high. The way I see it, if people aren't going to vote without encouragement they probably aren't going to be informed on the issues/candidates. Encouraging votes by people who know almost nothing about the issues is not a particularly good idea. It increase party-line votes, not informed choices.

If only 33% of the registered voters bother to vote, that means I effectively have 3 votes - and they are all informed votes (and I vote Independent). I may not make the best choice every time, but I try. So I think those are 3 quality votes. If those other 2 people can be browbeat into voting (when they otherwise wouldn't) we get 1 informed vote and (usually) 2 party-line votes. I don't really see the benefit.

If they would pay attention and study the issues and the candidates then sure, let's encourage participation. But otherwise, no.