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The 2023 Off Year US Elections Because Election Dragon Always Hungers in the States
archivistkitsune
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hopefully, I'm not stealing anyone thunder, but didn't see a thread up.
So who all is voting today:
Virginia
The entire state legislature is up for election this year. This includes all 40 state senate seats and all 100 house of delegate seats. Depending on how things go, this could result in another shitty GOP trifecta, where they will not doubt ban abortion, fuck with social assistance and make it harder to vote. Democrats could also take the HoD and force Youngkin's fascist ass to have to veto ton of popular legislation. I guess it's still on the table to get veto proof democratic majority is both chambers, which would require the democrats going from 22 seats in the senate, to 27, and then go from 48 in HoD to 67, but that seems extremely unlikely. Also we could get a status quo where no chamber changes hand and the state senate under democratic control, continues to prevent the GOP from ding all the shit things they want to do. The state senate is probably the most important set of elections because not only is that the fire wall against GOP fuckery, but the next round of elections for it won't be til 2027, so the next governor will have to deal with whatever we get in the way of a state senate this year. Sure vacancies could line up to change the chamber in the future, they easily may not; especially, with the democrats seeming to grasp that they are better off taking a year off, in the event that they decide they want to run for a higher office.
Also a fuck ton of local elections, but I'll let people break those down in the thread, if they wish to share.
New Jersey
Like Virginia the whole legislature is up for election, but unlike the state of Virginia, it's unlikely for either chamber to change hands and the state has a democratic governor, so the GOP agenda is pretty much dead.
Kentucky
The state of Kentucky has the following statewide offices up for election: governor, attorney general, treasurer, secretary of state, agriculture commissioner and auditor. Haven't looked too much into the elections for this state but the governor's race is competitive and the big item on this list. Currently, Andy Beshear (D) holds the office of governor and if he gets re-elected, it somewhat stymies what the GOP can do. IIRC they have veto proof majorities in both their chambers, but I could be wrong and I'm not sure the special election for the state's 93rd house district is going to change things.
Mississippi
The state Mississippi has a fuck ton of elections up this year including governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor, agriculture commissioner, insurance commissioner, public service commissioner (Central), two transportation commissioner positions (Central and Southern), 30 state House seats and 14 state Senate seats. Again, haven't paid much attention, but to the surprise of many, the governor's mansion in Mississippi is competitive, mostly because of a massive fucking scandal involving the current state government. Brandon Presley (D), a cousin of Elvis Presley, might be able to flip the seat and beat incumbent Tate Reeves. Don't know if their on conditions present to make this a potential blood bath for the GOP because Brandon Presley coattails and I doubt the current scandal, their stance on abortion, the GOP being a fucking trash fire and the GOP's poor treatment of the state's large black population is doing them any favors, but again, I'm not familiar enough to the states politics to say one way or another. So can't even tell you if Brandon Presley even has a shot at maybe not having to deal with a GOP legislature that has veto proof majorities. I still hope the GOP gets all the black eyes that are realistic in the state's elections.
Pennsylvania
One state supreme court justice is up for election. Won't necessarily have an obvious immediate impact. I'm sure the winner is going to influence some cases in ways that are immediately obvious when looking at partisan affiliation, but has potential long term implications, since whoever wins gets a shot at keeping the seat for another ten years when the term for the vacancy they are filling ends. If they fail the retention vote, the state's governor gets to appoint a temporary replacement, with state senate consent, until a proper replacement is elected. This potential stop GOP fuckery in it's tracks next year depending on how things go and have no impact.
Ohio
They have a referendum to decide whether or not the state constitution will guarantee women the right to an abortion should they feel they need one for any reason. I hope this passes. Forgot to mention marijuana legalization, that's also something they are voting on today.
Maine
The state having a referendum to decide if they'll allow fossil fuel companies to have greater control over their power grids or if they'll tel them to fuck off. Maine is also having a referendum on whether they'll let foreign government have influence over their elections (some research shows this is about closing an existing loophole, so yeah).
[/i]Texas[/i]
Texas has a referendum similar to Maine's utility one, where the asshole fossil barons might be give power to make TX power grid worse or I suppose keep it just as bad, but I'm sure they'll fuck things up more. Texas also has other shit on the ballot, but this OP is getting kind of long. So I'll just drop a link and maybe expand this later, if there is an interest.
New York
Has two referendums on the ballot today. One is dealing with debt limitations for local school districts and the other is dealing with debt involving sewage facilities that were constructed or reconstructed and have a contract prior to 2034. Don't know the full deal with these and hopefully, I didn't make them more confusing, but dropping them here since they are statewide and up for a vote today.
Also a shout out to Louisiana, which has a more fucked voting schedule than my state of residence, Virginia. Who may not have elections next week for earlier elections this year, that went to runoff.
I'm not oppose if someone wants to drop elections for out of US stuff that might be happening, but probably check with the mods on that.
So yeah, US election dragon always hungers and I don't think we can fix that by giving it a snickers, but boy do I hate off-year elections and whatever the fuck the deal is with states that not only don't hold their elections with federal elections, but don't even hold them on the first Tuesday of November.
P.S. This isn't the general politics thread and please take stuff to the relevant threads.
So who all is voting today:
Virginia
The entire state legislature is up for election this year. This includes all 40 state senate seats and all 100 house of delegate seats. Depending on how things go, this could result in another shitty GOP trifecta, where they will not doubt ban abortion, fuck with social assistance and make it harder to vote. Democrats could also take the HoD and force Youngkin's fascist ass to have to veto ton of popular legislation. I guess it's still on the table to get veto proof democratic majority is both chambers, which would require the democrats going from 22 seats in the senate, to 27, and then go from 48 in HoD to 67, but that seems extremely unlikely. Also we could get a status quo where no chamber changes hand and the state senate under democratic control, continues to prevent the GOP from ding all the shit things they want to do. The state senate is probably the most important set of elections because not only is that the fire wall against GOP fuckery, but the next round of elections for it won't be til 2027, so the next governor will have to deal with whatever we get in the way of a state senate this year. Sure vacancies could line up to change the chamber in the future, they easily may not; especially, with the democrats seeming to grasp that they are better off taking a year off, in the event that they decide they want to run for a higher office.
Also a fuck ton of local elections, but I'll let people break those down in the thread, if they wish to share.
New Jersey
Like Virginia the whole legislature is up for election, but unlike the state of Virginia, it's unlikely for either chamber to change hands and the state has a democratic governor, so the GOP agenda is pretty much dead.
Kentucky
The state of Kentucky has the following statewide offices up for election: governor, attorney general, treasurer, secretary of state, agriculture commissioner and auditor. Haven't looked too much into the elections for this state but the governor's race is competitive and the big item on this list. Currently, Andy Beshear (D) holds the office of governor and if he gets re-elected, it somewhat stymies what the GOP can do. IIRC they have veto proof majorities in both their chambers, but I could be wrong and I'm not sure the special election for the state's 93rd house district is going to change things.
Mississippi
The state Mississippi has a fuck ton of elections up this year including governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor, agriculture commissioner, insurance commissioner, public service commissioner (Central), two transportation commissioner positions (Central and Southern), 30 state House seats and 14 state Senate seats. Again, haven't paid much attention, but to the surprise of many, the governor's mansion in Mississippi is competitive, mostly because of a massive fucking scandal involving the current state government. Brandon Presley (D), a cousin of Elvis Presley, might be able to flip the seat and beat incumbent Tate Reeves. Don't know if their on conditions present to make this a potential blood bath for the GOP because Brandon Presley coattails and I doubt the current scandal, their stance on abortion, the GOP being a fucking trash fire and the GOP's poor treatment of the state's large black population is doing them any favors, but again, I'm not familiar enough to the states politics to say one way or another. So can't even tell you if Brandon Presley even has a shot at maybe not having to deal with a GOP legislature that has veto proof majorities. I still hope the GOP gets all the black eyes that are realistic in the state's elections.
Pennsylvania
One state supreme court justice is up for election. Won't necessarily have an obvious immediate impact. I'm sure the winner is going to influence some cases in ways that are immediately obvious when looking at partisan affiliation, but has potential long term implications, since whoever wins gets a shot at keeping the seat for another ten years when the term for the vacancy they are filling ends. If they fail the retention vote, the state's governor gets to appoint a temporary replacement, with state senate consent, until a proper replacement is elected. This potential stop GOP fuckery in it's tracks next year depending on how things go and have no impact.
Ohio
They have a referendum to decide whether or not the state constitution will guarantee women the right to an abortion should they feel they need one for any reason. I hope this passes. Forgot to mention marijuana legalization, that's also something they are voting on today.
Maine
The state having a referendum to decide if they'll allow fossil fuel companies to have greater control over their power grids or if they'll tel them to fuck off. Maine is also having a referendum on whether they'll let foreign government have influence over their elections (some research shows this is about closing an existing loophole, so yeah).
[/i]Texas[/i]
Texas has a referendum similar to Maine's utility one, where the asshole fossil barons might be give power to make TX power grid worse or I suppose keep it just as bad, but I'm sure they'll fuck things up more. Texas also has other shit on the ballot, but this OP is getting kind of long. So I'll just drop a link and maybe expand this later, if there is an interest.
New York
Has two referendums on the ballot today. One is dealing with debt limitations for local school districts and the other is dealing with debt involving sewage facilities that were constructed or reconstructed and have a contract prior to 2034. Don't know the full deal with these and hopefully, I didn't make them more confusing, but dropping them here since they are statewide and up for a vote today.
Also a shout out to Louisiana, which has a more fucked voting schedule than my state of residence, Virginia. Who may not have elections next week for earlier elections this year, that went to runoff.
I'm not oppose if someone wants to drop elections for out of US stuff that might be happening, but probably check with the mods on that.
So yeah, US election dragon always hungers and I don't think we can fix that by giving it a snickers, but boy do I hate off-year elections and whatever the fuck the deal is with states that not only don't hold their elections with federal elections, but don't even hold them on the first Tuesday of November.
P.S. This isn't the general politics thread and please take stuff to the relevant threads.
archivistkitsune on
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Go vote everyone!!
These are both easy yeses. The school district one is a result of how funding has changed over time. NYS law has a bunch of rules where school districts can accrue different amounts of debt depending on where they are. And the rules made sense when they were written. But now it just means that small cities (like my Albany) have a harder time getting funding.
The sewage one is just renewed an amendment that was written in 1963 for contracts up to 1973, and has been renewed every decade since (sometimes barely).
I've seen almost nothing on either proposal. Nobody seems to have strong feelings either way, and I'll bet a lot of people won't have heard about them until they see it on their ballot.
Bit of a crowd, so I don't know if that means good or bad things because I'm in a more conservative part of the county and I do think the crowd I saw at the polls skewed towards the old side, but we'll see.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
At least there generally weren't too many obviously terrible options, I guess?
Depends where you are. Tacoma apparently has some really fucked up people running for school board.
The fact that it's a genuine and confusing question of whether or not someone has an election to engage in self government for vast swathes of the country is definitely the marker of a well designed system.
I was deeply annoyed when I was putting the OP together because I was seeing a number of regularly scheduled statewide elections and state legislature shit that was being held during other parts of the year. Lord knows what the local election setup looks like because I know there is all sorts of bullshit there and I suspect a good chunk of these half-assed setups were setup to fuck with turnout from the get go and most probably cling to he setup because the goal of the status quo is entirely based on fucking with turnout. They figure if they sync elections better, then those races won't go the way they want them to.
I know people argue that local election will get drowned out by state elections and that the federal elections will drown everything else out. I call bullshit on that, aligning stuff means people are more likely to check other elections. If someone can't be bothered to see who all is running at the local level during a presidential election, they sure as fuck are unlikely to bother showing up for the local election at all, if it's in April on an off year. Also crazy idea, maybe the government should be setting out a packet of voter information, that includes people running and what elections are happening, if people are concerned about a lower tier election being drowned out by a higher one. Maybe make it so that the media kind gets forced to acknowledge that the lower offices are up for election for a change, instead of ignoring them. Again, I've noticed that the media largely ignores local elections, even when those are the only thing happening in the way of elections during spring in an off year, not unless there is a highly competitive race or a candidate get a fuck ton of negative attention.
I voted against pretty much everything except more money for retired teachers and power to the El Paso council to allocate funds for parks and recreation.
Unfortunately I expect the tax cuts and the ban of any potential wealth tax to pass overwhelmingly.
Oh no, sorry, that was a neighboring town. Apparently the voter turnout for my town was so low they didn't publicly disclose the results because it was a threat to voter privacy.
Hope it makes a difference. I saw a lot of traffic in and out of the polling place when I was there. I saw a lot of women, so I’m hopeful voting wise.
I always circle the people I vote for in my pamphlets so I can remember how I vote when results come out, but since I don't bother to vote in uncontested elections, that state pamphlet went straight to the recycling.
Magic Online - Bertro
That...doesn't make any sense? You can't tell who voted vs who didn't, so how could reveal the results show anything
I don't quite understand it myself, tbh. But the official election result page for my county doesn't list it and says.
I mean, I think having elections every year isn't a terrible idea, as long as vote by mail and long voting periods are standard
https://www.threads.net/@newsbreakinglive/post/CzXOn6aP9z6/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Link is to a news aggregator on Threads with screenshots of the CNN story.
Edit: NBC's exit poll asked a somewhat different question, asking whether people were satisfied with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and got a 60-35 result for dissatisfied.
https://www.threads.net/@michaelqtodd/post/CzXOSgBvg77/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Granted, just getting all the elections in the fall, would at least set things up so that you could more or less codify a regular date in the event that someone runs for higher office and wins and that stymies a fair bit of bullshit; especially, if it also means that various legislatures have a fire under their ass to get nominations through for new incoming administrations, so that any vacancies that occur can have special elections on that date as well.
Anyways, less than a hour until polls close in Virginia. I've been following a few places and people: Blue Virginia, Ben Tribbett, Sam Shirazi and Chaz Nuttycombe (yes, that is is his actually last name). Turnout seems to be pretty good, I gather a number of places are at or above what they need to be for democrats to potentially have a good night. Ben Tribbett and Chaz Nuttycombe both suspect that the GOP's early voting has cannibalized the republican election day vote. DLLC is thinking that we might not know who will control each chamber until a week from now because they anticipate enough races being close and it coming down to mail in votes, which can be counted up to Nov 13, assuming they were mailed out before the deadline and they also are anticipating a ton of provisional ballots. Voters for both of those things the provisional ballots and the tail end of mail in ballots, are expected to skew heavily democratic.
On the note with provisional, that is pretty much what happens to anyone that is registering same day and I gather Williamsburg had a fuck ton of student voters show up around the lunch time rush. Sounds like it might have happened in other areas with noticeable college student populations. So that's likely good for democrats. I was worried that the bullshit in the Middle East might result in college students staying home, but that doesn't appear to be a concern now. Yay, for this state make same day registrations a thing, now if we could just codify a ton of the nice voter stuff into the constitution, so that the GOP or a future incarnation of them, won't being to do away with those setups, should they get a trifecta.
Youngkin and the GOP are now being pretty open about wanting to ban abortion, so that and the national GOP's dysfunction could prove to be wildcards that result in some surprises that people weren't expecting. It's why I say veto proof democratic majorities in both the state senate and HoD aren't impossible, even though they are extremely unlikely. It's just those are the two things that could let democrats get seats that no one expected them to win.
Anyways, hopefully, people will vote if they have elections and not opt to sit out the election. Candidates and options may be imperfect, but if a choice exists, it's often better to go with the best option available and then look into making sure future options aren't so meh.
fire up the needle!
I was planning on that as well, and then the interstate was clogged with traffic with wrecks, so I didn’t get to my polling place in time.
no
Indiana polls close earliest in the country iirc.
Yet another thing that needs to be standardized in the eventual Voting Rights Act - We Mean It This Time legislation.
So Dave Wasserman has noted that democrats have a chance to expand their margins in the state senate. The three races to watch are SD17, SD 24 and SD 27. If democrats have a really good night, the expectation is that they get up to 25 seats in the chamber, mind you things could go better, but that would be beyond expectations. At the risk of jinxing things, Ben Tribbett suspects that democrats might already have a lock on 21 seats in the chamber.
It's control of HD that is going to be hard to call, unless democrats have a damn good night. Then we might know tonight, but we could also be looking at next week before we know who controls each chamber.
Looks like abortion in OH is doing well, too.
Who would have guessed the way to protect abortion was to let people decide directly
Approval for Biden didn’t mean shit last election, and it won’t mean shit in the next.