A new view on voting.

'Tis the eve of the mid-term general election, so it's also time for my political post for the year.  And this time around, I've basically given up on political candidates.  I've long held that my life would not be too significantly different if either a Democrat or Republican won any particular election that I've been a part of.  And we all know that voting for an independent candidate is a wasted vote these days.  The final straw was probably all the unsolicited mailings (a complete waste of paper, if you ask me) and phone calls that I received in the few weeks leading up to the election.  So I'm done voting for people for legislative and executive offices in government (and pretty much any position where a party affiliation is listed on the ballot).

But this does NOT mean that I'm no longer voting.  I just will be voting for the things that I think matter.  For example, measures that are put to a popular vote certainly matter.  I don't think a vote on a ballot measure is ever a wasted vote - in this case everyone's opinion counts equally on an issue that matters.  I will also be voting on whether to retain the judges in my district.  In the past, I abstained on these because I had no idea how to vote on any of these.  However, thanks to Lester Kyles, I have been made aware that the Missouri Bar association rates judges based on surveys given to lawyers and jurors in their cases; see here.  Unfortunately, the Bar seems to almost always recommend that every judge be retained, even when they have significantly lower scores than their peers.  There also seems to be a saddening correlation between a judge's low score and his/her race (I assume/hope that lawyers and jurors are not generally racists), but I digress.  Needless to say, I will be not be voting for all judges to be retained.

Lastly, in case you're interested, here's how I think I will be voting tomorrow morning:

• All judges will be getting a vote for retention except:
• David Mason will be getting a vote to NOT retain
• Angela Quigless, Barbara Peebles, and Paula Bryant will probably not be getting a vote either way
• MO Constitutional Amendment 1 - The exception (for Jackson County) is arbitrary and stupid; so NO.
• MO Constitutional Amendment 2 - This does not seem like the appropriate way to reward disabled POWs - NO.
• MO Constitutional Amendment 3 - I think this is a YES, just cuz I don't like new taxes, but I don't know that I have a more thoughtful justification for why this should be in the MO constitution.
• MO Proposition A - ?
• MO Proposition B - I get the animal cruelty deal, but I don't understand the limit on 50 puppies.  Not certain, but I think this is a NO.
• St. Louis City Proposition F - YES.
• St. Louis City Preferential Proposition L - YES.