Dispatches from the Eccentric Frontier

Here are links to the resources I used to figure out how to fill out my ballot. I give my conclusions, and I invite you to come to your own, and I hope this effort saves you a headache. $ means an order of magnitude of money backing a candidate, starting at the thousands, so $$$$ means a candidate has single-digit millions of dollars in their campaign. You may find Vote411 useful as well; they don’t support deep linking, so I can’t give you shortcuts.

I’m not thrilled with some of the candidates, but I keep in mind that a vote is not a valentine. You aren’t confessing your love for the candidate. It’s a chess move to get closer to the world you want to live in. If you would like to have a better choice of candidates, I commend your attention to FairVote and Californians for Electoral Reform.

( If your vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t spend so much on influencing and suppressing it. )

Comments are screened. I’m not in a mood to argue.

Here are links to the resources I used to figure out how to fill out my ballot. I give my conclusions, and I invite you to come to your own, and I hope this effort saves you a headache. $ means an order of magnitude of money backing a candidate, starting at the thousands, so $$$$ means a candidate has single-digit millions of dollars in their campaign.

I’m not thrilled with some of the candidates, but I keep in mind that a vote is not a valentine. You aren’t confessing your love for the candidate. It’s a chess move to get closer to the world you want to live in. If you would like to have a better choice of candidates, I commend your attention to FairVote and Californians for Electoral Reform.

( If your vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t spend so much on influencing and suppressing it. )

Comments are screened. I’m not in a mood to argue.

The GOP have given up on being a competitive party in California and are now simply attempting to disrupt the state as much as possible. Due to our state having the most permissive recall law in the nation, their third attempt to get it on the ballot has finally succeeded and now they’re wasting $276m of our tax dollars in hopes of installing someone who is not competent to handle the state’s challenges and will very likely try to turn us into another Florida with regard to COVID-19. The San Francisco Chronicle isn’t even considering candidates for endorsement. The LA Times says “Hell, no!” Beyond the COVID response, consider what happens if Dianne Feinstein has to step down and gets replaced by an extremist like Kevin McCarthy or Darrell Issa. Even Faulconer, a rare Republican who acknowledges Biden’s victory, used to lobby for climate deniers even though he claims to have changed his spots. Even the California GOP won’t endorse a candidate because they have no solutions, only more problems to heap on our shoulders. The state has plenty of real problems, and we don’t need a bout of chaos engineering between now and January 2023. Please vote no.

Newsom is telling people to not even bother with the second question. Strategically, this makes no sense, but rhetorically, it does: any effort to enthuse people to vote for a particular candidate in the recall will also enthuse them to vote Yes on the recall.

So how to vote strategically to mitigate possible damage? The LA Times suggests Faulconer as the least-bad viable option. The Sacramento Bee produced a voter guide, but it’s paywalled. Fortunately, Ballotpedia is following this. I’ll be voting for Joel Ventresca, who is a progressive Democrat with actual public service experience, just to bring down the percentages for the chaos candidates.

As usual, I’ve done my research for the upcoming election and written up my notes to share with the rest of the class. I’ve given my conclusions, and invite you to come to your own. Even if we disagree on every issue, I’m happy if this saves you a headache.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s 2020 Voter Guide. The Mercury News has a Q&A on this year’s voting.

Party-Nominated Offices

President of the United States

( just in case you haven’t already made up your mind )

County Committee

( If you’re a registered Democrat )

Voter-Nominated Offices

Thanks to California’s “jungle primary” rules, the top two vote-getters in the primary will face off in the general election. If you would like a better system than that, I commend your attention to Californians for Electoral Reform.

( And the rest of the ballot )

As usual, I’ve done my research for the upcoming election and written up my notes to share with the rest of the class. I’ve given my conclusions, and invite you to come to your own. Even if we disagree on every issue, I’m happy if this saves you a headache.

( Top Two is a terrible primary system )

As usual, I’ve done my research for the upcoming election and written up my notes to share with the rest of the class. I’ve given my conclusions, and invite you to come to your own. Even if we disagree on every issue, I’m happy if this saves you a headache.

• President and Vice President of the United States

  Thanks to our electoral system, there are only two viable choices for President, protest votes are ineffectual, and often regretted. How many Nader voters are happy with their choice in 2000, after George W. Bush got us into a $3tn war in a country that posed no threat to us? If you want more than two choices, I commend your attention to FairVote, who support electoral reform that would give us more possibilities. If you want to make a stand, demand of your representatives that they commit to reform that will make more parties viable, so we can have more than two choices. And if you’re tired of the concept of “swing states” altogether, check out the National Popular Vote compact.

  No matter what you see in the polls, the election belongs to the people who show up to vote; in the UK, people got complacent and wound up with a vote for Brexit that is inflicting ongoing damage to their economy. Please be sure to vote.

  ( Just in case you haven’t already made up your mind... )

( The rest of the offices )

As usual, I’ve done my research for the upcoming election and written up my notes to share with the rest of the class. I’ve given my conclusions, and invite you to come to your own. Even if we disagree on every issue, I’m happy if this saves you a headache. It’s a midterm election without even a senator on the ballot. That means you especially need to vote, because a lot of people won’t be bothering.

( Political information cut to spare your sanity )

As usual, I’ve written up my research notes for the coming election so you can all crib from my work. I’ve given my conclusions, and invite everyone to come to their own. Even if we disagree on everything, I’m still happy if this collection of links saved you a headache. ( No issues outside Sunnyvale this time )

As usual, I’ve written up my research notes for the coming election so you can all crib from my work. I’ve given my conclusions, and invite everyone to come to their own. Even if we disagree on everything, I’m still happy if this collection of links saved you a headache.

( State Propositions )

As usual, I’ve written up my research notes for the coming election so you can all crib from my work. I’ve given my conclusions, and invite everyone to come to their own. Even if we disagree on everything, I'm still happy if this collection of links saved you a headache. ( No issues outside Sunnyvale this time )