24 August 2018

Six weeks before voting starts — 1609 mdt

As always, I’ll be voting in person on election day. As long as I have the strength to visit my polling place, even if I have to be driven there in a wheelchair while breathing bottled oxygen, that’s were I’ll vote. (After I die, I’m considering being buried in Butte so I can vote from the grave.) Other voters, younger and stronger, but with poorer time management skills, have so much difficulty scheduling a visit to the poll that they vote by mail, marking their ballots at their kitchen tables where they’re spared the indignity of standing next to a neighbor who would benefit from the policies of the other political political party.

I don’t decide for whom I’m voting until election day. That should not be taken as an invitation for politicians to knock on my door, to try to telephone me, to send me direct mail, or to otherwise attempt influencing my vote. I do my own research. I study the platform of the party to which a candidate belongs, and his set of issues as described on his campaign’s website. I consult news stories on the campaign, and think tank reports on the issue. I don’t watch television. I ignore all internet ads. I throw away without reading doorhangers. I save some direct mail, but I don’t read it until after the election. I carefully consider what I’ve learned, then usually vote a straight party ticket.