The big day is here. You have until 8:00 pm tonight to get your ballot into an official drop site. After that, all you can do is hope and pray that your candidates and issues come out on top.
I’ll admit we haven’t done as much political coverage as I wanted to do this time around. One reason is that transportation isn’t even on the radar of candidates this time around, which is unfortunate given its vast role in many parts of our lives. I hope you were able to find the information you needed to make informed choices from other sources.
I’m curious… what are you feeling and thinking as we head into what is likely to be a very wild news cycle?
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
I live in the “swing state” of North Carolina. Our state allows for both early voting and mail-in absentee ballots, but a majority still do like I did this morning and head to the nearest precinct to vote in person. No line to get my ballot, but there were about 5 others ahead of me filling in their ballots. After we fill out a ballot, we each put it into a scanner which then tells us if our ballots have been counted or not. We had races for US senate, US house (of course), state house & senate, numerous partisan judgeships, school board seats, and county commissioners. The only thing non-partisan was the soil commission. City government was last spring and our next governors race is in 2024. NC doesn’t allow referendums, alas, one of 12 states that ban them – one of the few things I miss about Oregon elections, even when many of the measures were kinda silly. Voter registration in my county is over 80%, but local turnout can vary a lot – as low as 4% for a primary and 14% for city council, to over 60% for a presidential election. NC and Maryland are probably the most infamously gerrymandered states in the USA – our redistricting is regularly reviewed by the US Supreme Court several times per year – and my apartment has changed US House districts 4 times since I moved here 7 years ago.
The only thing on my mind is voting for people who don’t throw temper tantrums when elections don’t go their way, and don’t manufacture fake concerns about voter fraud. Anything else is secondary to me right now.
And I’d like to give a big shout-out to Oregon’s and other western states’ voting systems. Makes it so much easier to vote out here than in most of the US.
As of this morning it is the lowest turnout (45%) for early voting in Oregon since at least 2010.
Election denying and bad faith and big money is having the results they want.
Multnomah County was at 32.5% last night (about half of the turnout of 2018). My God folks, they even mail the ballot to where you live.
Our household didn’t get our ballots to the dropbox until yesterday and today. I think some people might have been studying some of the more crazy referendums more deeply – particularly the charter reform. I kept going back and forth right up until the end as to whether it would be more damaging for it to pass (because it’s got problems!), or to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Because of the whole postmarked by today thing, I imagine a lot more folks are waiting until today to mail their ballot. We’ll see.
I much preferred requiring ballots be at the county by today, but that’s just me.
The governor’s race between, Kotek, Drazan, and Johnson, would have been more compelling with ranked-choice voting. It also would have eliminated the spoiler-effect of Johnson and other minor-party candidates in the race.
I agree, and would support a well-designed ranked choice system for statewide races. As for Johnson, maybe Kotek or Drazan were the spoilers. Without either of them, Johnson would almost certainly win.
No she would not… She is an awful person and a bad candidate.
Anyone could get 9% of the vote with 5 million dollars. Embarrassing take.
You’re saying that Johnson wouldn’t have won even if she was the only candidate?
“I agree, and would support a well-designed ranked choice system for statewide races.”
Keep your eyes peeled for a 2024 STAR voting statewide initiative supporters are gathering signatures for right now (or may have already completed doing…I need to check back in).
STAR is so much better than what the City Charter RCV is. The Multnomah Charter vote change is also better than the City voting change.
The last time I remember feeling anything but dread, disgust and dismay on election night was when Obama was elected for a second term. Is there a democracy out there where I would feel better? Maybe even not feel nauseated?
I did not go to the party/vigil of the candidate for whom I volunteered, even though I planned to. I just couldn’t make myself.
You don’t strike me as a Mitt Romney supporter. Just goes to show how little you actually learn about someone based on their anonymous internet profiles!
Joann vs her, to quote our president, “semi-fascist” opponent.
They’ve already forgotten about the heat waves and forest fires exasperated by Climate Change. The idea that Drazen the denier is neck and neck is more proof America needs free education.
If you believe Kotek is going to address the climate crisis in any meaningful way, can I sell you on an I5 bridge?
This might sound naive, but I think Kotek is a lot smarter and better at politics than Gov. Brown. Kotek understands how leadership works and she was not going to go too strongly against the winds. But now as Governor she can create the wind. She’s also from north Portland and I’ve seen her show up to local n’hood traffic safety meetings in the past. I have confidence that, if the right people lean on her in the right way, Kotek just might address ODOT/OTC reform. It can’t happen soon enough!
Not sure why anyone on this forum has much to worry about. The elections will undoubtedly go your way.
The type of candidate I’d really like to be able to vote for has no chance in our system.
I’m too much of a pragmatist these days to waste my vote for someone who can’t win instead of doing my damnedest to make sure someone truly terrible doesn’t win.
And even when I was hopeful that the person I had to vote for was also someone I’d want to vote for, I was let down (yeah Barack, I’m looking at you).