TexasCHLforum.com

JustSomeOldGuy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 30, 2020 10:57 pm

RicoTX wrote: ↑Sun Oct 25, 2020 9:08 pm ....... I will say I don't think party affiliation should even be on the ballet. You should either know who you are voting for by name or you shouldn't vote in that ........

Both passive-aggressive AND quite profound. No labels in the voting booth. I like it!

I do vote by party in elections where I don't know the candidates. Even so, I have long said that the two most important election reforms we can do are to equalize access to the ballot and to remove all indications of party or incumbency from the ballot. By equalize access, I want everyone to have to do the same thing to get on the ballot - number of signatures, cash fee, whatever the requirement is. This should be without regard to being in a party or not. And once they get on the ballot, there should be no way for anyone to know who is the incumbent or to which party the candidate belongs, if any.

This way we get more people to run and hopefully a fairer election. I figure if the incumbent does nothing during his term to get his name out, he is obviously incompetent and not representing his people.

TAM,

I have several rules for how I vote. On general principles, my first rule is to not vote in any race where there is only one person running. Something about having an uncontested race bothers me and this way at least it will not be a unanimous decision. I then vote for the specific people who I have decided I like in office. We have too many elected offices and I do not have time to study the candidates for every race on the ballot, as much as I know I should. If I do not have a person i want in office, I believe that I can judge them by the party they choose to associate with. My party preferences for Texas elections are Libertarian, then Republican, then Democrat. In a few cases, there are people I know I want out of office and I don't care who replaces them. In those cases, I use my party preference and make sure to skip the party that person is in. There are certain parties I will never vote for, including the Green party, the Socialist (by name not action) party, and the Communist party.

When I lived in other states, with different parties getting on the ballot (like the Constitutional Party), I place them in various spots in my preference list.

While I always recommend voting for a person, I honestly think no one can study every race any more. And then we have the problems you mentioned of how to vote if the issues I am concerned about are not part of the candidates public platform or answers. My system may not work for everyone, but so far I am satisfied with it.