Early Voting

[malkin]

Early voting is brilliant!
Completely saturated, over-saturated, filled to the gills, sick and tired of political everything, having voted, I am now exempt from all of it and will ignore everything, even the results.

[luvmyguys]

+1000

I plan to vote this week and join you in ignoring everything.

[thekarens]

I'm also voting this week. It's a nightmare to vote on election day.

[Blueberry]

I wish I could ignore it. We are being inundated. TV, mail, radio, and now even Hulu, Pandora, and online streaming shows from the networks. Plus the door to door people who are rallying to get out the vote for their candidate, and the never-ending telephone calls on my unlisted cell phone. I'm not even safe in my house with all devices off!

It's to the point where I've been sorely tempted to tally the interruptions in my life and vote for the guy/gal in each race who has annoyed me the least (there's one who is a PRIME offender). I believe in democracy, and I would never do that. But I'm sick and flipping tired of the intrusions into my life.

[OakLeaf]

We have a phone line that's a legacy of dial-up internet, and now it's the number we give out whenever a business or nonprofit asks for our number, but it's not a "real" number and we don't answer it, the ringer is turned off, there's an answering machine in case it's something real like a bank trying to resolve a suspicious transaction. I've never been so glad for that line as I have in the past few weeks.

I don't think voting early will stop the spam. I could've done it a couple of weeks ago, I may not get around to it until election day ... I never planned to vote by mail, so the choice is trying to find the time to vote on a trip into town, vs a nice five-mile round trip walk on election day (provided the weather isn't so crummy that we drive instead ).

[goldfinch]

We have vote by mail only. All signed, sealed and delivered. Glad to be done. I'll also be glad when politics fades from our morning breakfast group.

[Koronin]

First day of in-person early voting started here on Oct 18th and we were there that day to vote. Of course AFTER I vote I start getting tons of junk in the mail. UGH! I already voted don't send me the junk now, esp if you couldn't be bothered to send it before early voting started. I'm tired of the ads as well. The worst part is I'm in NC so we aren't getting hit that hard with ads like people in Ohio are. Most of my family is in Ohio and they are much more sick and tired of it. My mom told me she had one entire set of ads that were nothing but political ads.

[Trek420]

Voted, mailed it in and already checked online and they got it.

Thanks for voting, everyone.

[malkin]

Living in Utah, my vote means pretty much nothing for all but the most local issues, and it's dubious even then. If I lived in Ohio, I'd probably have to leave the country for a month.

[Koronin]

I grew up in Ohio and this year is worse (from what I've heard) than any previous year for all the ads. I'm not convinced my vote means much either, and I live in a supposed swing state. I'm just not convinced NC is yet a swing state. I do believe it's headed that way, but I don't believe it's actually there yet.

[emily_in_nc]

One huge advantage of living in Belize! We voted absentee online (emailed in the scanned ballots), and the only ads we see are the few on the networks stations our satellite TV beams in. The stations are all in Mass. or NY, both uncontested states for the Presidency, so very few ads. No robocalls and no mail either.

[Koronin]

emily, that sounds wonderful. Should I even ask how expensive it is to live there?

[BikeDutchess]

Get out and vote! by DutchRosie, on Flickr

I voted early too, although living in the same state as Malkin, it almost seems futile. But I became a citizen a few years ago in part to be able to vote, so I'm going to exercise that right!

[TrekDianna]

No home phone, NEVER watch TV (I'm not even sure it works). We vote by mail here. I ignore all political ads. The only ones I see are the ones that are places along the roads. AFter the first few days, I tune them out and don't see them either. All of the crap is wasted on me.

[Bike Writer]

Voted absentee ballot. I don't pay attention to the ads, robo calls etc because those things tell me little about a candidate. My mind's been made up for a few months now and unfolding events over the last few months have only solifided my choice.

What really bothers me is the amount of money that is spent in national elections and by special interest groups to sway people. It's mind boggeling. I have no solution to that problem because of freedom of speech and the right to be able to be enterprising and raise funds to accomplish that. I sure wish someone had a viable alternative to the billions spent though.