Don't Forget #elections #knowyourballot #georgia #primary

Don't forget that tomorrow is the primary!  You can look up your ballot at the Georgia My Voter Page.  Research your candidates and be ready for tomorrow.

Deadline is fast approaching!

The deadline to register to vote is October 11th.  Make sure you're registered to vote!

Polls open at 7a until 7p - GO VOTE #vote #elections #generalprimary

 Just a reminder to GO VOTE!

Time to start considering the possibilities #elections #vote #doyourresearch

The general primary is less than a week away.  So, that means it's time for you to start considering (if you haven't already) those running for office in your area and the changes to laws/constitutions that are coming up.  To see who/what is on the ballot, you can go to the Georgia My Voter Page and enter your information. It will show you the three ballots for your area (Democratic, Republican, Non-Partisan).  Note: You can ONLY vote on ONE ballot.  You will have to choose which ballot you are voting when you go to your polling place.  You can click at the bottom of the MVP page to see the list of qualified candidates for more information about them.

One of the big things showing on my ballot is:
“Should an appointee of the Governor be allowed to bypass the elected State School Superintendent and local school board in order to take over local school operations including buildings and control of public schools funds?”

The answer should be NO.  This is your Opportunity District that we don't need.

In the meantime, do your reading and understand who's running for which office.  It's your job.

Primary Election Day Tomorrow and why you should go vote

Sure it may "only" be the primaries, but you should really get out and vote.  I pulled these statistics from Statistic Brain.  It's sad to know that half of the eligible voters are actually registered to vote.  The question will be how many "bother" to go and put out their opinion.

Total number of Americans eligible to vote	218,959,000
Total number of Americans registered to vote	146,311,000
Total number of Americans who voted in the 2012 Presidential election	126,144,000
Percent of Americans who voted in the 2012 Presidential election	57.5 %
State with the highest voter turnout rate (Minnesota)	75 %
State with the lowest voter turnout rate (Utah)	53.1 %

I can only hope that people realize that it DOES make a difference, even if the general opinion is that it won't.  The primaries will send delegates to the conventions to vote for party candidates.  You can help either a) make sure YOUR candidate has a chance to make it (by voting FOR them), or b) vote AGAINST the person you least want to see have a chance (by voting in their party for someone ELSE, preferably a desirable alternative not just a random candidate).

Polls open at 7a tomorrow morning and stay open until 7p.  Make the effort to get out and vote.

Early Gwinnett voting satellite locations are open

If you don't want to have to deal with crowds and work when trying to vote next week, satellite locations open for voting this week.  You can find locations/times on the Gwinnett County Voter Elections site.

Thoughts for Thursday #elections #vote

I've been debating with myself what statement (if any) I would make about Tuesday's elections.  I took the day and worked the polls again, though with a different precinct from May.  Tuesday's precinct has approximately 1100 registered voters in it.  From what my poll co-workers told me, approximately 85 voters came in for the May primary.  We had around 45 voters come by on Tuesday.  That tells me that most voters are willing to let someone else speak for them, regardless of what's said.  I know that many precincts had better turn out than we did, but turn out in general was only around 10% state wide.

It's a sad state to hear so many complain about how things are being done, yet so few do anything about it.  They may be vocal, but they're ineffective if they don't actually follow through. 

If you follow the AJC at all, there was an article yesterday that mentions that of Tuesday's republican voters, 85000 of them didn't bother to vote for the school superintendant.  It may be that those who didn't vote are adults who have no children and thus have no desire to affect current education.  If that's the case, then you can't complain about those kids graduating without skills they need to have.  Education of our kids ultimately affects EVERYONE.  Those are the kids that you'll find running your banks and are the next politicians you'll feel the need to dis.  There's so much more of a big picture than just whether or not you have kids in the system.

I can only hope that there will be a significantly bigger turn out for the November election.  Whether or not I agree with your political stance, or vice versa, I'd rather see you make the effort to effect a change in the system and there NEEDS to be change.

Run Offs are Today #Vote #MakeYourVoiceHeard

First day at the Polls

I thought I'd follow up with a brief summary of my first day working at an election poll.  I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to a long day.  I was expected to be there by 6a to get the poll set up and ready to go by 7a.  Polls close at 7p and then we have to shut it all down.  I'm glad I wasn't the poll manager that had to then transport stuff  back to election headquarters which made the day that much longer.  As it was, it was close to 10p by the time I got home.  Very long day.

The day itself actually ran pretty quickly.  The setup was hectic as we tried to get everything up before our deadline.  Voting was relatively light, but fairly constant.  We had 1-2 voters at a time, pretty much all day long.  A couple of times we got excited because all of our units were full and we had a small waiting line.  (Oh the simple joys.)  It was disappointing, though, that more didn't turn out.  We had just under 300 voters turn out.  My understanding is that our precinct is 1500+.  So less than 1/5 of the precincts voters made the effort.  Sad.

At any rate, I've already indicated I'd be happy to work the runoff in July.  Somehow I'm not expecting a lot out of that one.  Then again, I could be surprised too.

It's Election Day! (Primaries)

Time to figure out your candidates

If you haven't done so by now, you really need to think about which candidates you're going to vote for in the primary tomorrow.  You can go to your "My Voter" page and log in. It will tell you who's running and give you links to their sites.

Election Day

Don't forget to get out and VOTE! The only thing on my ballot this go around is the SPLOST vote. The catch with this SPLOST vote is that around $5M of the money will go to Gwinnett County Schools to fund a new security system. I'm all for that. We can all hope and pray that the spree of crimes in schools won't affect our system, but there's no guarantees at this point. I'd rather be proactive in prevention, then reactive after something happens. You can check your ballot before going to the polls here: http://mvp.sos.state.ga.us/

GO VOTE!

Voting - Know your Candidates!

There's more to this November's ballot than the president's race. There are local elections as well. It's your responsibility to make sure you know who is running and what they stand for. It's apathy on our part that puts people in positions of power that shouldn't be there. Gwinnett County Board of Education reps are facing challengers. You can see an article about it from the AJC here.

If you don't know who's running in your district, you can check out the state's elections page and it will tell you: http://mvp.sos.state.ga.us/

Do your research and when you go to the polls in November, maybe we can get things fixed around here!

Election Notes

Election day is coming up next week and it's something we should all be thinking about. Looking at my local Gwinnett ticket, there are three primary things to decide on the general ticket. Those are:

1) Judge Superior Court, GA
2) Judge State Court, Gwinnett
3) T-Splost

Under the democratic ticket, there are a few added positions to look at:

1) US Representative of 113th Congress from 4th Congressional District in GA
2)Should the Georgia Constitution be amended to allow the state to override locally-elected school boards’ decisions when it comes to the creation of charter schools in your county or city?
3) Do you support ending current practice permitting unlimited gifts from lobbyists to state legislators?
4) Should Georgia adopt an income tax credit for home energy costs to support the economic security of our families?
5) Should Georgia reduce sales taxes on Made in Georgia products so as to support the growth of small businesses in our state?
6) Do you support the idea of limited commercial passenger flights from Gwinnett Airport - Briscoe Field?
7) Would you support Casino gambling in Gwinnett County?
8) Do you believe $50,000.00 is a sufficient salary for the Board of Commissioners Chairman to oversee the 800,000+ citizens of Gwinnett County?
9) Did you know there is a mandated Saturday Voting Day included in the Early Voting for the November General Election on October 27th?


Under the republican ticket the first 3 questions are under consideration, as is 1-3 from the democratic ticket. They add a couple of other questions:

1) Should active duty military personnel who are under the age of 21 be allowed to get a Georgia weapon's license?
2) Should citizens who wish to vote in a primary election be required to register their political affiliation at least 30 days in advance of said primary election?
3) Should the constitution be amended so as to provide that the paramount right to life is vested in each innocent human being from his or her earliest biological beginning without regard to age, race, sex, health, function or condition of dependency?

This does not mean these are the ONLY things being voted on this month. There are several positions (both incumbent and not) that are on all three tickets as well. I would highly recommend voting on a party ballot simply to answer some of those questions that need to be answered. I would highly recommend that you check out your local ballot and see what else is being put on there for your review.
http://mvp.sos.state.ga.us/Login.aspx