Vote 2024
46 days. The National portal for all the states: Vote.org
Today is the first day for Minnesotans to vote in the 2024 election. The website is here, If you are a Minnesotan, I would recommend that you download and print a copy of your ballot. The contents vary, of course, dependent on where you live, so I won’t include a copy of my own ballot, which contains (not including write-in) 9 candidates for President/Vice-President; 4 for one U.S. Senator; 2 for Congressional Representative; 2 for State Representative. Every position is crucial, and its important to know the candidates and the issues.
There is a single proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution.
There are 8 candidates for 2 positions on the Woodbury City Council – the people who run our city
Then there are the Judges – 24 of them by my count. To my knowledge, all are incumbents. Four of them have an opponent.
Judges and City Council members are non-partisan, and how to assess them is not easy.
A humorous handout at the MN Judicial Branch table at the State Fair in 2024. https://www.mncourts.gov/
For the Council candidates I watched the on-line League of Women Voters introduction. Two of the candidates who filed did not attend the League event. Some of the candidates had a website, which I visited. Otherwise, I simply have to go by feedback from others, since I have generally approved of how my city works.
For the judges, all of those with competition, and their opponents, had websites, which were useful. One of the contenders did not have a website as of this week…there was a placeholder without content. The contenders websites were not very revealing. A retired Supreme Court justice wrote a letter to the editor in today’s paper supporting one of the incumbents. Absent some other evidence, the safest bet is to vote for the incumbents, who were generally appointed to the bench. Here‘s what the judicial department says about Minnesota judicial appointments.
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Personally, my electoral choices for 2024 remains the same as articulated earlier.
Kamala Harris/Tim Walz for President/Vice-President, here.
My most important post (personally) is at Sep 2 here.
I maintain that at this moment in history there is no Republican Party. The party name has been hi-jacked, and until the GOP reconstructs it really doesn’t exist. We are in very dangerous times with our democracy at serious risk. At minimum, I urge no favorable vote for any candidate at any level who joined the Election Denial brigade which has plagued us all for the last four years.
Project 2025 is a legitimate threat to democracy; as is disinformation of all kinds.
Joyce Vance has an interesting column today on elections in America. You can read it here.
See you at the polls.
POSTNOTE:
For those interested, I have three additional posts within the last couple of weeks.
POSTNOTE 2: The annual Twin Cities Nonviolent begins on September 21 for twelve days. Do check it out.
About October 1 may be my next post, recalling Jimmy Carter on the occasion of his 100th birthday. He is in very fragile condition.
POSTNOTE 3: The first comment to this post came from Joyce, in my town in Minnesota: “[We] voted early this afternoon; there were a lot of people voting, and I hope that’s a good sign.” Another comment from someone else talked about a controversial decision by our City Council, which is non partisan, but apparently ideologically majority Republican, while electorally our city has been Democrat.
Last night we watched a truly extraordinary film premier, “From Russia with Lev“, about Lev Parnas and the Russian involvement in American politics. [The film airs again tonight (Sat Sep 21) at 7 p.m. CDT on MSNBC] The link has more information. It will certainly be available for viewing again, but I don’t have details. It is phenomenal, if you have any interest in looking behind the screen at political reality in our country. Of course, it will be trolled. So what else is new. The story is told by Lev and documented heavily.
Then overnight came Heather Cox Richardson’s commentary on the Electoral College, which I’d recommend to everyone. The temptation is, sometimes, to not vote at all, since it seems that this single grain of sand will make no difference anyway. I very, very strongly disagree. If our democracy is to work, it takes all of us, one at a time, to make it so. There is no alternative. Do everything you can, and VOTE.
COMMENTS:
from Mary: not surprised to see your ‘first day voting in Minnesota’ commentary! I do hope for lots of voters. I still plan to vote in person-I vote with every election and can count on one hand the number of times I have used absentee. Just a habit and no, I never tell folks who I vote for. It should be pretty clear who I don’t vote for but I have been known to not do enough homework and make a decision on the way to the polling place based on who has signs in their front yards. I have a perfect yard for political signage but don’t permit it – not to say that renegade signs have sometimes appeared.
from Lois: I would like to see someone give facts of just what is “threat to democracy” – specifically what actions will cause us to lose our status of a democracy. I started to read Wikipedia for a very detailed history of facts and will take time to read the entire article, but would like your words, or from others – either party, on what positions and platform items make the threat.
Thanks for the link to the sample ballot!
from Remi: I find it very strange that in the U.S., judges are either elected or appointed by senators. In my view, this politicization undermines the principle of the separation of powers. Recently, Mexico also decided to elect judges, which many argue signals a serious threat to democracy. I watched “From Russia with Lev“ and loved it.