Today is Election Day in Wisconsin. The 2018 Partisan Primary.
Over the past 35 years, I have a stellar voting record that I’d put up against anyone’s. I won’t say that I’ve never missed an election (there have been a couple local elections where there were simply no contested races on my ballot), but for the most part, I have made it a point to go vote even when I know there is no chance that my preference would win (I live in a liberal city).
During all of those years of voting, I have always voted Republican. Not because I always agreed with everything the Republican candidate stood for, but because they were always the closest option to my own viewpoints.
Today is the first election day with any consequential choices that I have ever considered not voting.
Since it is a partisan primary, voters can only vote for choices within one party (so, if you vote in the Republican choices for Governor, you cannot then vote in the Democrat choices for governor as well…or any other office. You must choose a specific Party and then only vote for the choices within that Party. Doing otherwise, will void your ballot.)
In Wisconsin, we don’t officially declare our Party affiliation with our voter registration. Therefore, when I state that I am no longer a Republican, there is no official need to change my registration. Voters simply decide which Party primary to participate in when voting.
Since I am no longer a Republican, per my personal declaration, I will not participate in the Republican Primary today. That leaves me the option of voting in the Democratic, Libertarian, Wisconsin Green, or the Constitution parties.
I will not vote in the Democratic Primary, as I still believe them to be as equally repulsive as the Republican Party. The rest of the options have very few candidates on the ballot for the various offices, and where they do, none are contested.
So, what is a politically homeless person to do?
I was thinking that I’d choose any of our regulars here at TNB over anyone that is listed on my ballot. So that is what I’m doing. Below is an image of how my ballot will look today. My method of choosing was random (I simply opened an article scrolled to the comments and chose the first name that my eyes spotted). So, if you don’t see your name, please don’t read anything into that. Again, I’d take anyone here over my other choices. I chose to vote in the Constitution Party because in a sane political world, that would probably be the party for me.
For those who made it onto my ballot…please be prepared to move to Wisconsin if you win!
I will be very interested in analyzing the voting numbers of today’s Primary voting compared to previous years. I’ll let you know if anything jumps out at me.
