Thanks to our Sr. Director, Policy & Advocacy, Tim O’Connell, here is some useful information about our upcoming elections and links to excellent non-partisan sites to help you learn more. Voting is a fundamental right in our representative democracy, and in many other nations it is duty (in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Singapore, Luxembourg, and other nations, they fine you if you don’t vote; in many other nations, it is a legal duty, but not strictly enforced, including Mexico, Turkey, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Belgium and others). As usual, there are a lot of people running for local elections about which we don’t know much, as well as some new candidates for state and national offices who are new. But, there are some resources that will help you learn a little more about them, and make it easier to decide which ones deserve your vote. There is a summary of all of the ballot measures, candidates, and links to other information at the California Voter Foundation website. One of the tools (linked below) Cal Voter links to is an online tool called Voter’s Edge, cosponsored by the League of Women Voters. You go to votersedge.org/, enter your address, and the website shows you your ballot. If you click on the candidates, or the ballot measure, it opens up a summary about that person or issue. You may also “vote” and then print the whole thing out to take to your polling place (and the website will help you find that if your sample ballot is not clear) as a “cheat sheet.” The people who put it together would like you to “vote” on their site and then “share” that with them, sort of like a pre-election poll, but you do not need to do that to use the information. If you want to know more about who is contributing to support candidates, Open Secrets has much more detail for Federal candidates. Detailed information for State candidates is available at Cal-Access, but it is not summarized, so digging in takes a lot more work.) There is still time to register, in case you have moved or you are a new voter; October 20 is the last day to register to vote. More information about registering, including a link to the online forms, is available at calvoter.org/voter/faq.html#reg. The last day to request a Vote By Mail ballot is October 28, and more information about that is available at calvoter.org/voter/faq.html#abs REMEMBER, a Vote by Mail ballot must be received by your county election office by 8 pm on Election Day; you can mail in your ballot, return it to any polling place in your own county on Election Day, or return it in person to your county election office. A postmark is not good enough.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 15:08:04 +0000
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