Vote for Bammer. I support responsibly priced haircuts.

By the way, I opened this thread to mention that our Town council was decided by 24 votes.

We got a recount for Boston city council.

A bar a few blocks down the street from us won a vote to sell liquor on Sundays, 262-37.

Aren’t you from Woosta, you fuckin’ hahd on?

Bump!

My happy place

Apparently this was not a joke.

https://wtop.com/dc-transit/2019/11/maryland-leaders-consider-monorail-to-ease-i270-congestion/

What's the difference between a monorail and a normal, raised light rail?

All provisional and absentee ballots have been counted, a recount was completed, and a UNC grad student has officially defeated the incumbent by 22 votes.

Another grad student here became a judge last year by writing himself in and winning with one vote.

If I ran this town I’d build more speed bumps.

You're a monster

I never vote for judges, it feels...wrong. takes away from the impartial thing.

https://ggwash.org/view/67201/why-cities-rarely-build-monorails-explained

This is purely a political response by a very left leaning county government to a (moderate) republican governor looking to expand the Beltway (something over 70% of voters support but runs afoul of all sorts of justices and *isms).

You can't be serious.

Why not? Every judge runs unopposed anyway so voting for them or not voting for them amounts to the same thing.

I vote between two candidates but if it's just one person then what is a vote for other than confirming that they ran a campaign?

Party leadership pays close attention to this stuff, and by voting or not voting, you let them know to what extent you agree with the platform chosen by the candidate.

For example, if you vote for Dems on a ballot but skip a vote on an unopposed race, then they might assume there was something about that candidate you didn't like.

Of course it depends on the type of elections in your state. We have an open ballot system, so I can vote for moderate Republicans in the primary, then moderate Dems in the general. By voting for moderate Republicans but NOT voting for the far-right candidates, the MT GOP gets a sense of what level of conservatism I'm comfortable with.

This is a different argument than the one you first put forward (that voting against a judge ruins their impartiality). That first argument seems just prima facie wrong, as it asumes any judge is impartial (haha) and further that voting or not voting for them somehow affects their impartiality (which doesn't exist, so, it can't be affected).

The idea that it's pretty inconsequential is at least a little more convincing. I suppose it depends where you live and to what extent you've paid attention to local elections. I've lived in major metro areas for the last seven years or so, so generally judgeships are quite contested (the local precinct judge I mentioned earlier notwithstanding) and make clear just how false the idea of a judge's impartiality should be (i.e. to what extent they are pro-cop, pro-worker's rights, pro-immigrant, etc.). Moreover, even unopposed judges can and should be voted either for or against, whether (as trag says) as a clear endorsement of the party or as a referendum on their behavior. There was a judge in Vegas who was recalled in an unopposed election (if I'm remembering correctly he locked up a female defense attorney on spurious charges). So no, I don't think voting for judges is inconsequential in itself, even if in practice it might tend to be so.

I got the mailer once from the Republicans saying "these neighbors haven't voted in years, you should talk to them" and I was confused. Also got one once from them saying "you've voted this many times, why not sit this one out" or something similar. Very strange stuff.

That impartiality jab was just that - a jab. Nothing of substance. is the correct indication of that, i think?

I live in Vancouver WA, a small little suburb of Portland. I vote in every election regardless of how big or small and read the voting book for everyone. As it stands, the judgeships aren't contested at all because this is a small municipality. If I were actually in Portland it'd be different I'm sure.