Crowdsourcing Election Verification, part 2
Back in June, I suggested that public voting records would be healthy for our democracy if the populace were comfortable revealing their voting records. There is now a movement* and new web site for this called Who Voted? though they are not going as far as I am in advocating for revealing your actual choices.
True to my word, I voted absentee, which not only gave me an opportunity to photocopy my completed ballot, but also gave me some time fill out each choice so that I could double-check and not make a mistake. I am revealing to you each of my ballot choices. My home state is Nevada, I’ll let you look up the details of the ballot choices if you care.
- U.S. President/VP: Obama/Biden
- U.S. Rep. in Congress: Shelly Berkeley
- State Senate: David Parks
- State Assembly: Joe Hogan
- Justice of Supreme Court Seat B: Deborah Schumacher
- Justice of Supreme Court Seat D: Mark Gibbons
- District Court Judge, Dept. 6: Elissa Cadish
- District Court Judge, Dept. 7: Linda Marie Bell
- District Court Judge, Dept. 8: Doug Smith
- District Court Judge, Dept. 10: William D. Kephart
- District Court Judge, Dept. 12: Michelle Leavitt
- District Court Judge, Dept. 14: Donald M. Mosley
- District Court Judge, Dept. 17: Michael Villani
- District Court Judge, Dept. 22: Susan Johnson
- District Court Judge, Dept. 23: Stefany Miley
- District Court Judge, Dept. 25: Kathleen E. Delaney
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. G: Cynthia “Dianne” Steel
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. I: Greta Muirhead
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. J: Kenneth Pollock
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. K: Vincent Ochoa
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. L: Jennifer Elliot
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. N: Mathew Harter
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. O: Frank P. Sullivan
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. P: Jack Howard
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. Q: Bryce Duckworth
- District Court Judge, Family Div. Dept. R: Chuck Hoskin
- State Question 1: Yes
- State Question 2: Yes
- State Question 3: Yes
- State Question 4: Yes
For the various judges I did not do in depth research, but rather mostly relied on the recommendation of The Sun, which is the liberal paper in Nevada. Here are some noteworthy choices and reasoning:
David Parks: “Democratic Assemblyman David Parks wants more participation in the state’s health insurance program for children. He would also like to see the Mojave Generating Station in Laughlin, which closed in 2005, converted into a facility for producing solar power. The Sun endorses David Parks.”
Joe Hogan: “The Democratic incumbent, Joe Hogan, has earned good grades in his previous two terms. We like his support for developing Nevada’s renewable energy potential. The Sun endorses Joe Hogan.”
Deborah Schumacher: She’s been a family court judge for 15 years; her opponent is an attorney with no previous judicial experience; her opponent also endorsed McCain and Palin and criticized Obama at a rally, when judges are supposed to be politically neutral.
On the State Questions I went against the Sun’s recommendation on a couple of them:
State Question 1: I feel that state constitutions should not be in violation of the U.S. Constitution, and this corrects that issue.
State Question 2: The Sun says this is costly and unworkable, but the chance of a citizen being trampled on by the State via corrupt eminent domain proceedings is too high to compromise on.
State Question 3: The Sun say that lawmakers should be doing this anyway and that it doesn’t belong in the constitution. I’m not so trusting of lawmakers.
State Question 4: Lets lawmakers amend sales tax law without a vote from the people in order to conform with federal law, which sellers have to do anyway; this will make it easier for sellers to abide by tax laws.
hat tip: Jessa Forsythe-Crane for helping with the research
* As far as I know, my blog post had nothing to do with this. Coincidentally the site was created by the academic department which conferred my undergrad degree (Symbolic Systems). If anything, the causal arrow goes from them to me, but as you know by now I favor emergent causality.
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