| Do your homework and then talk it up. That’s what democracy is all about!
Ballots go into the mail today in Spokane County (and Washington State) for the 2019 General Election for municipal and school board candidates–and a confusing bunch of advisory votes and initiatives. The deadline to turn in your ballot is Tuesday, November 5 at 8PM. Don’t leave your homework until the last minute.
You can maximize your effect on this election by understanding what’s being voted on–and the best way to do that is to look at it ahead of time and informing yourself. For all Washington residents who are registered to vote, now is great time to visit MyVote.wa.gov and enter your name and birth date to see your voting particulars. On the first page that appears check to see if your Registration is “Active” and contact them if it is not. (This page should also show the address to which your ballot is/was mailed, an address that could be different from your address of Registration. When I checked this time the mailing address did not show. I have contacted Secretary of State’s office.)
To preview the ballot you should receive in the mail, click “Online Ballot.” Then you can either print a copy of your ballot to look at (click “Print and Mark”) or you can save as a pdf on your computer. (How you do that depends on your particular computer/printer setup.)
Inspect your ballot. Thanks to that pox on our governance, Mr. Tim Eyman, there are a dozen “Advisory Votes” that take up most of the first page and part of the second page. They are a waste of ink and everyone’s time. One must suspect that Eyman’s purpose was to discourage people from voting: homework overload. You can safely check all these “Advisory Votes” as “Maintained”–or you can just ignore them. They have no effect. Here’s what the Progressive Voters Guide has to say:
Because of a Tim Eyman initiative, the Legislature is required to submit any bill it passes that closes tax loopholes or raises revenue to a non-binding advisory vote. The Legislature had a historically productive 2019 session, resulting in a record number of advisory votes on the ballot. We hope the Legislature will change the law to remove these meaningless measures in the future.
One useful thing you can do for your friends, neighbors, and acquaintances is to mention these advisory votes and the fact that they can be safely ignored. The votes made on a ballot are counted even if you only vote on one candidate or one measure. Don’t put off your homework because it looks daunting thanks to Mr. Eyman. That’s what some would like you to do. It’s a strategy…
In Washington the first two issues on the ballot statewide are Referendum Measure No. 88 (concerning discrimination and affirmative action) and Initiative Measure No. 976, an attack on infrastructure funding penned by Tim Eyman. I recommend YES on 88 and NO on 976. More on both of these in a later post.
The only other issue on the ballot statewide is Senate Joint Resolution No. 8200 (second page of the ballot after all the Eyman “Advisory Votes”). It asks us whether we support a Washington State Constitutional amendment that would make provisions for government continuity in the case of natural disasters. I recommend a YES vote. This is simple foresight in governance. For more detail click here.
Voters may be dismayed by this ballot’s daunting presentation–and put it off to another day. Do your homework early. Talk up your findings with your fellow citizens. This is your power as a citizen of this state.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry |
