For perhaps the last time, here is the traditional election day open thread.
I invite you to share whatever you like about your vote and polling place.
I’m particularly interested in our collective response to the ballot questions.
Please share widely!
I was voter number 140 in Ward 5 Precinct 2 in Somerville.
Interestingly, my ballot did not have question 4. I’m actually hazy about where that question appeared and what impact it has. I would have voted for it had it been on my ballot.
For the first time in my 52 years of voting, I voted for all the Democrats on the ballot — even the ones I don’t know in offices I don’t know about — in order to send a clear message to anyone listening.
The one exception is that I did not vote for any candidate for the House. I will ignore Ayanna Pressley for as long as she ignores me. Ms. Pressley does not represent either Somerville or me. It is easy for Ms. Pressley to get my vote — all it takes is for her or someone on her staff to respond to my occasional and polite emails or phone calls. My prior representatives — including Barney Frank (while I lived in Brookline) and Mike Capuano (who Ms. Pressley replaced) — easily met that low bar.
Here’s how I voted on the questions:
Question 1: Yes
Question 2: Yes
Question 3: No
Ayanna Pressley remains a disappointment.
Question 4 was about retaining drivers licenses regardless of immigration status. It may have been on a separate page. You certainly could have asked for the additional page if you weren’t handed it at first.
I was handed a one-page two-sided ballot. Question 4 was not on the ballot I was handed.
I would have voted “Yes” on Q4 if asked. It appears that it will pass anyway, even if Somerville voters were not given an opportunity to vote on it.
3 seemed to be very misleading. I assumed it increased alcohol licenses to grocery stores which seems to be a good thing but I’ve also been told it increased costs to small businesses and restaurants for their own licenses. I voted Yes but am glad to see it’s now a No. One of the perils of early voting is sometimes getting the call wrong.
Also maybe one of those arguments against direct democracy. I voted yes because it seemed like a good compromise between expansion and safety, but it was the result I cared the least if it went my way.
I voted yes on all the ballot initiatives. Turnout was pretty solid in Watertown in my precinct as of 10:30am!
Yes to all the questions, too.
Yes, Yes, No, Yes. I went down a rabbit hole on question 3 and came out feeling completely apathetic.
Yes to all, straight D as always*, and our polling place was hopping all day.
*My one R vote was for GHW Bush, a friend of my dad.
Race called for Healey as expected and others look good. Lauren Boebert may lose her House seat. Lots of US Senate still too early/close to call, but OH has been called for Vance.
My wife’s ballot did not get to us in time before our move and she was in no condition to travel to the polls yesterday. So I’m disappointed about that, but fortunately it looks like all my choices in the primary and general won their races (which is rare for me) and the ballot questions seem to be going the right way.
And the big news was Fetterman winning! If we can pull that off and AZ NV and GA we’re in solid shape. WI would be nice icing on the cake to Sinemanchin proof nuking the filibuster.
To Tom’s point about Ayanna, my wife met her and was super knowledgeable about Medicare reimbursements and how to get her hospital to accept more low income patients. There is a wonky side to her. I saw this when I met her with my practicum students when she was a city councilor. She has the potential to make a great wonky Senator in the Warren mode. Unfortunately like Warren she also overrates the power and influence of the largely online left wing base for real political power when it’s not. She could be the next O’Neil or Frank but she’s becoming another Pete Stark or Dennis Kucinich. A bomb thrower rather than a law maker.
Her first mistake was aligning herself with the Squad who have a laser like focus on voting the wrong way and saying the wrong things at the wrong time. The Ukraine surrender letter was a totally avoidable disaster that made them look incompetent at best, appeaser at worst.. If Ilhan Omar was a white Republican repeatedly saying the things she says about Jews we would expel her from the caucus and someone as serious and ambitious as Ayanna should disavow friends like that.
Many of her own tweets are ill informed and quickly retracted, whether it’s defending the Slap or justifying her vote against the infrastructure bill (which fully funds the Somerville Green Line extension and Orange Line repairs running right through her district!).
Clark is very visible in Revere and is at every ribbon cutting while Ayanna votes against funds her district needs since the Squad would rather get likes and donations from their echo chamber that they don’t really need rather than win over the hearts and minds of their own caucus and the other side to actually pass legislation. Maybe it’s my getting into middle age, but my votes for her, donations to AOC, and two votes for Bernie remain big regrets in my life. If I could go back and vote for Hillary, Capuano, and Klobuchar I would.
Point of order – there’s no way jconway gets to call himself middle age yet! 🙂
Incidentally I hope to keep in touch with all of you via email and hopefully we can meet in person again. I’m in a very stressful phase of life (grad school, newborn on the way, just finished up a difficult and unexpected move) but am sure when things calm down (as it looks like they might finally be in our country) I hope to have some more politics and brews with this crew.
I hope that all of us get through these all these changes with a minimum of additional broken china.
Life is long (we hope!) and we each make decisions we later regret. A wise mentor of mine describes the results as “scar tissue” and emphasizes that an important part of learning is to not make the same mistake more than a few times.
Scar tissue helps remind us of past mistakes — and helps us make better decisions in the future.
The scar tissue quote is quite apt advice for life. Thanks for sharing it.
Are you still in the area? Since I had not seen you here in a while I was actually about to email you to make sure you saw the post about the site coming down.
I’m obviously late for election day (though hey, some races are still undecided!), but I was just thinking about BMG, and was by turns happy to see it still up, and saddened if unsurprised to see Charley’s post below about its impending shutoff. Similarly I’m glad to see a lot of familiar names here in the comments, and to have the chance to express one last time my admiration and affection for this blog and its community.
Cheers, all. This was a hell of a place, once upon a time. Wouldn’t trade it.