It's my godforsaken right

BabyM for President in 2048!

Election Day is not that exciting here in Washington where we all vote by mail. TJ and I completed our ballots on Halloween night and I dropped them off at a ballot box last week.

As the daughter of 2 naturalized citizens, it's been ingrained into me that voting is REALLY important. My first presidential election was in 1996. I was in grad school in San Diego and was very proud to get my "I voted" sticker.

We're not always on top of the primaries here, but are pretty good about voting in the regular election. I like our current process - we gather our ballots, voter info pamphlets, my laptop, and a frosty beverage of our choosing, and go through the items line by line. It's fun - we don't have a lot of political discussions in our house, but it's nice to chat about our views in this context.

My reference source is our local alternative newspaper, The Stranger, which publishes a useful Election Guide with their endorsements.

I know that sounds sketchy but they actually interview the candidates and do a good job of explaining why they favor a particular candidate or position.  I don't always agree with their conclusions but their info is helpful for the local elections where we don't know much about either side.

I HATE the game of politics, though.  HATE it.  I don't see this as a spectator sport, and hate the ridiculousness spewed by both sides.  If I could block all political posts on Facebook, I would.  Luckily we don't have TV anymore, so we don't see political commercials except for a handful on Hulu.com. We got rid of our home phone line so we don't get robocalls.

A few things I noticed about our voting preferences:

• TJ doesn't vote on uncontested elections.  I thought that was interesting.  I need to look up what happens with those - if those candidates get just 1 vote do they automatically win? 
• For local races where we didn't have a strong preference (like Lands Commissioner), we tended to vote for the candidate with a better educational pedigree.  PhD scientist from Berkeley, we voted for you!  Editor of Yale Law Review and Rhodes Scholar, we voted for you too.  Make us proud :)
• If one candidate didn't bother sending in summary info for the pamphlet, we tended not to vote for him/her.  Seems sort of important, considering most people don't do extensive research on their state representatives and other local officials.
• As much as we don't discuss politics in our house, we're in agreement on most of the bigger issues and candidates, which is nice.

I feel good about completing my civic duty for another year. Now onto holiday preparations!