Election Day 3/3/2009

oday is Election Day and it will be the third election in which we’ve voted in the past 10 months.  The first one was in June 2008 and I honestly don’t remember anything we voted on for that election.  Maybe there were some school board positions or county measures, or city council positions.  I remember it was at a nearby elementary school.  There were no other voters there when we arrived in the late afternoon, just poll workers who looked very glad to see us.  I believe our ballot numbers were 2 and 3 or something very small like that.  I guess we were just the second and third voters to show up.

Of course, it was a different story the second time we voted in the past 10 months.  Last November nearly all the voting booths at the same elementary school were full, though there wasn’t a line and we got done fairly quickly.  Our ballot numbers were in the 500’s.

This time it’s all local positions.  The mayor is running unopposed; five people, including the incumbents, are running for two city council seats; and the city clerk and treasurer positions each have two people competing.  We received our sample ballots and made our decisions based on the candidates’ written statements, mailings, and newspaper editorials and endorsements.  One candidate didn’t have very good quality control with his mailing and the picture of him on the flyer looked like he needed to wipe his nose.  That ruled him out.  Overall, I expect this election to be more similar to last June’s than last November’s, but I hope our ballot numbers are higher than 2 and 3.