Voting in primary elections

[Ben E Lou]

How do those of you who aren't party-line voters either way do it? I confess that there are only two primaries that I am even moderately passionate about. I may only vote on those two tomorrow. Of course, the good news in this neck of the woods is that it is always fairly safe to do the following:

1. Print out AJC's endorsements.
2. Vote the opposite of what they recommend.

[Buccaneer]

Primary elections? What are those? In my 26 years of voting, I hadn't been able to vote in any of them. The Voting Rights Act apparently do not apply to certain voters.

[ice4277]

I have never even really thought about voting in a primary. As a generally disillusioned independent who is sick of the politics in today's society, general elections are basically a 'lesser of two evils' situation for me. In my limited voting history (8 years) there has never been a candidate I have felt sufficiently drawn to, at least, not enough to make me go out before the general election.

[kcchief19]

I'm a stickler -- I feel if you don't do the research and know the issues, then you have no credibility when you moan and complain. If there is a race in which I don't know anything about any of the candidates, I won't vote. But I try to make a decision in all races before hand.

Newspaper endoresements hold little weight with me. I read them for information, but I rarely if ever vote one way or another based on a paper's endorsement. I'll lean more credence to the endorsement's of organization which I identify with.

[korme]

dunno what ill do yet

[korme]

did i mention i have 0 interest in politics?

[Ryche]

Stay home for the primary, make my job easier.

[timmynausea]

I have a question about the statewide primary elections, actually. Where I live the only real signs I've seen around are for district court judges, which I believe are at least supposed to be non-partisan positions. I guess what I'm wondering is what these primaries decide in this case. If it's non-partisan how does it narrow things down for the general election. Anybody know?

[JonInMiddleGA]

timmynausea -- I'm not sure what state you're in, but I can answer a little bit in terms of how it'll work here in Georgia.

For some reason (which escapes me right now), non-partisan judicial elections are conducted at the same time as the party primaries. This is their "general election", and these races will not appear on the November ballots in Georgia.

Now, before anyone unfamiliar with this particular system worries about disenfranchisement of non-party voters, it is perfectly allowable for anyone interested in those races to request & receive a "non-partisan only" ballot. This year, that includes the judicial races and nothing else. Which, of the wide array of state-level judicial races, includes just two contested races with the rest all composed of incumbents running unopposed.

[Ryche]

Non partisan primaries reduce candidates down so there are only two to vote on in the general election. Top two vote getters move on usually.

[timmynausea]

Originally Posted by Ryche

Non partisan primaries reduce candidates down so there are only two to vote on in the general election. Top two vote getters move on usually.

Ok. I figured it'd be something like that. I just wasn't sure. Thanks.

[Franklinnoble]

Hmm... I don't think California is having a primary tomorrow... but if they are, I don't care.

[JonInMiddleGA]

SD - Having voted in both major party primaries in the past decade or so, I'll take a stab at this.

1) Voting opposite the AJC is virtually always a safe call

2) As always, there'll be a number of counties (including the one where I grew up) where lifelong members of one party will cross over to the other party primary this year because of a particularly heated local race that only had qualifiers from "the other party". For example, I suspect my dad will vote in a GOP primary for the first time in his life tomorrow, because all 3 candidates for both county commissioner & sheriff are running as Republicans. Those situations do make for some unusual ballot choices, where you really only care about 1 or 2 things out of however many.

3) I do have a tough time relating to some of the whole "I'm not really passionate about XYZ race" thing though. At the state or national level, I have a pretty tough time not finding a fairly clear favorite with a moderate amount of research on the field of candidates. One by one (or sometimes by groups), there'll be candidates who eliminate themselves as my choice by virtue of some key vote/position/action or another. Usually, in those cases where I don't have a true "favorite", I'll lend my vote to what I guess could rightfully be called "the last man standing".

Without asking you to divulge too much, and most definitely without asking you to reveal a vote choice in any direction, I'm curious enough to ask about something -- would I be right to guess that at least one of the two races you have particular interest in is among the non-partisan statewide judicial contests? I ask because this year seems to be the first time I can recall where a judicial contest is sending people to the polls (the one I have in mind is one of only three races on my ballot where I had strong preference for a particular candidate, and probably the most responsible for me actually voting early last week to make sure I didn't miss my chance tomorrow).

[finkenst]

hey, skydog, you know it's not primary day in every state, right?

[timmynausea]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

timmynausea -- I'm not sure what state you're in, but I can answer a little bit in terms of how it'll work here in Georgia.

For some reason (which escapes me right now), non-partisan judicial elections are conducted at the same time as the party primaries. This is their "general election", and these races will not appear on the November ballots in Georgia.

Now, before anyone unfamiliar with this particular system worries about disenfranchisement of non-party voters, it is perfectly allowable for anyone interested in those races to request & receive a "non-partisan only" ballot. This year, that includes the judicial races and nothing else. Which, of the wide array of state-level judicial races, includes just two contested races with the rest all composed of incumbents running unopposed.

Somehow I missed your post the first time through. I had considered that this could be in essence their general election, esp. since candidates for various judicial positions spent the money to get yard signs out around here.
I'm in Michigan and our primary is not until August 3. I can't believe the lack of coverage in the local papers, though.

I probably wouldn't have voted in the primary as there is basically very little of consequence, but now that it could be important for judicial races, I probably will.

[ISiddiqui]

Best part about primary election being over... these damned ads can stop! I don't care who lied about who or who is more conservative or who owes taxes on what... just SHUT UP!

I still do a double take when a judge's commerical though... sooooo wrong.