Election (The Only Time I'm Going to Talk Politics)

I was just reading on Laurie's blog that she voted early this week, but realized when she got there that she had no idea where lots of the candidates stood when it got away from the Presidential and Senate seats. I would say that tends to be true for most of us--at this point, you probably know your choice for President. But those ballots contain a LOT of other names, and unless you're voting straight-party, you will probably find yourself wondering how to vote for your state officials on a district level. I'm one to talk about voting savvy--in the 2000 election I double-punched my ballot and only realized this when the news showed a pictures of what that looked like after the whole "hanging chad" debacle. Yup--I'm a double-puncher.

In any case, our church had a great printed resource from a non-partisan group called the Free Market Foundation. They have provided a voter's guide for Texas for the past 25 years. Basically, they take some of the major issues (healthcare, immigration, taxes, abortion, etc) and create a chart for each candidate, insofar as they have received responses directly from that candidate. It's a pretty basic and bare-bones guide, but it's a great resource when you are looking at some of the smaller state offices. It gets into the nitty gritty of the local and state issues too. Some of those in Texas now deal with legalized gambling, gun control, and divorce reform. For the smaller offices, they also list any organiziation that the candidate has professed involvement with in the past 10 years. It's your legal right to take this guide into the booth with you, which is helpful if you can't remember it all!

I will say that there really is no such thing as non-partisan, and you can make a judgment on which side this group would fall on if you visit their site. Regardless, I do think that the guide is fair and informative and they have done a great job getting as much information as the candidates themselves would provide.

I don't know if each state has a group like this or a guide like this, but I know it's going to be a great resource before I hit the booth! Okay, that's about as much politics as I can handle on the blog. Ugh. I can't wait until this election is over...