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November 08, 2005
I Voted
I voted two weeks ago, but never got around to blogging about it. Why everyone does not early vote is beyond me. Most of the people I talked to waited until today or planned on voting today, but did not get around to it. Voting the day of the election means worrying about going to the right polling place and having to wait in line. When I went two weeks ago I went to a convenient place and there were four poll workers with me as the only voter.
The biggest issue in Texas was the new gay marriage ban (proposition 2), which looks like it passed by a wide margin. This was a particularly ugly campaign with dishonest advertising. There were many reports of the Proposition 2 opponents resorting to misleading push polling shortly before the election as well reports from people I spoke to about the No on Proposition 2 posters being made in the same font, size, and color of the preexisting Yes on Proposition 2 posters.
Other local items on the ballot involved raising taxes for more community colleges and more police in San Antonio. I voted for the police and against the college funding. I voted no on most of the nine other propositions on the ballot since they were mainly giveaways to special interest groups. It looks like seven of these will pass as of this writing, including the railroad one which is still close and which I voted against.
I need to read up on how Texas law works since most of the items on the ballot seemed like they should be decided by representative government, not ballots. The only ones that seemed like they should be before the voters were the local tax/college/police issues. I am against most state propositions and in general against using the ballot box to make policy decisions. I think using propositions makes sense are in rare instances like California's redistricting proposition, but only because that is a major restructuring of how the state government will work, not what it will do. In California it seems like the propositions have removed any incentive for the state legislature to tackle tough policy issues, so the problems just get worse until propositions are the only way to fix them. This is not a good cycle.
Posted by Pete at November 8, 2005 09:33 PM
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Comments
I voted for prop's 1,4, and 6 and against the rest.
Given how many of them passed, I suspect that many people are inclined to vote for the amendment by default if they're not sure. Since most of them are for the expansion of government power and that they're constitutional amendements (harder to undue once they're done), I'm inclined to vote against them instead.
Oh, and I just voted today. My polling place is the grade school across the street from my house and the line consisted of one person. Early voting would have been more inconvenient for me. I once tried early voting in SA (it was in that old run-down mall across the street from the big one) and the line was huge. I left and easily voted on election day.
It was also electronic voting here, which was interesting. Unfortunately, I did not get a paper receipt.
Posted by: Dangerous Dan at November 8, 2005 11:01 PM
In the immortal words of Nelson Munz from the Simpsons: HA HA! Not a single proposition passed in California yesterday and most were defeated soundly (55% or more). Check my blog later for my ideas on how the state could have spent the $80 million more wisely
Posted by: Jeff at November 9, 2005 12:12 PM