Voting

This past Friday I filled out my ballot, and soon thereafter it was sent out. I won’t tell you who and what I voted for, but I will tell you how it went. Where I live in Colorado, the ballot is two oversized pieces of paper, with three sides of those two pages covered in things to vote on. In addition to the presidential choices, I had the privilege of voting on US Senate and House seats, various local government posts, the retention of individual judges, and a slew of state ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments. Much like tax returns, voting in America can appear rather daunting at first, but just requires a person to take it one piece at a time, and slowly grind through the form until it’s complete. With that in mind, I grabbed the official state ballot information booklet that came in the mail, opened up a web browser to research additional information, and then started the long process of filling in the ballot, section by section.

Interestingly, I ended up filling out the ballot in reverse order, meaning I first worked through the ballot initiatives and amendments, then the judge retentions, then the local officials, then the Senate and House, and finally the president. I’m not sure why I did it this way, but it might be that I was trying to postpone the presidential section of the ballot for as long as possible, seeing as how I’m quite disturbed that either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be our next president. The initiatives and amendments took the longest to complete, as each one had its own summary, analysis, estimated fiscal impact, arguments for and against, and actual legal text to read through. After that came judge retentions, and for each state judge there was report from the State Commission on Judicial Performance that gave some insight into their performance and included the commission’s recommendation. Then came what turned out to be the hardest part—local elections. I say it was the hardest because for some of the candidates it was tricky to find information that could sway me one way or another. Some time on the internet was required before I could finish the ballot section on local elections, but once I was finished I moved on to the Senate and House seats, which were much easier to decide since information on people running for national offices is very easy to find. In short order those two votes were decided, and then it was time for the big one—the vote for our next president. I actually took a break at that point and came back later in the day to fill that part in. Trump and Clinton were at the top of the list, followed by twenty other candidates (and the option to write in a name). I had to pick from those twenty other candidates, knowing full well that none of them stood a chance of becoming president. All of our common wisdom says doing so it the same as not voting, but I also knew I couldn’t bear the thought of sacrificing my integrity and giving Trump or Clinton my endorsement. I sat there for a while, thinking it over, and then made my choice. Then I folded up the ballot, put it in the envelope that came with it, signed the back of the envelope, and sent it off. And just like that, it was over.