I find myself currently registered to vote in the Pennsylvania REPUBLICAN primary on May 15.
I’d appreciate any recommendations as to how to navigate this ballot.
First, here’s how I generally approach voting:
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If I am only offered one choice, I don’t vote for that “choice”. I instead undervote or write in someone I would have preferred. I do this EVEN IF the one choice on offer is someone I support (unless maybe I’ve gotten wind of some organized write-in campaign gaining traction as a credible opposition)
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If there are multiple choices on offer, I identify IMHO the least worst choice.
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I either vote for the least worst choice or I write in someone I would have preferred run.
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I prefer my write-in to be an actual person (not “Donald Duck”) who meets all the requirement for the office in question; age, residency, and ideally even party affiliation.
So, keeping that in mind, here’s what I’ll be facing next Tuesday:
FOR U.S. Senate
Lou Barletta - UNACCEPTABLE
James Christiana - LEAST WORST
Christiana, a former car salesman from my home turf in Western Pa, could have swayed me if he hadn’t directly demonize Planned Parenthood on his very bare-boned campaign web page. I’ll be undervoting this primary race and voting for Bob Casey in November.
FOR PA Governor
Laura Ellsworth - LEAST WORST
Paul Mango - UNACCEPTABLE
Scott Wagner - UNACCEPTABLE
I can conscionably vote for Elsworth here if for no other reason than I would like to see Wagner lose to a “girl”. I will be voting enthusiastically for Tom Wolf in November.
FOR PA Lieutenant Governor
Jeffrey Bartos - UNACCEPTABLE
Kathleen Ann Coder - LEAST WORST
Marguerite Luksik - UNACCEPTABLE
Diana Irey Vaughan - UNACCEPTABLE
I can vote for Coder here. In PA, the Governor and Lt Governor primaries are not linked. Unofficially, Bartos is linked to Wagner’s campaign and Ivey is paired with Paul Mango’s campaign.
If Coder would somehow win this primary, she would be an awkward running mate for Mango or Wagner. I’ll be voting for Wolf in November whoever his Lt Gov running mate is (I kinda like Fetterman).
FOR 10th Congressional District
Scott Perry - UNACCEPTABLE
With the newly drawn boundaries of the PA-10, ‘Freedom Caucus’ mouth breather Perry ought to be challenged every step of the way , I am thinking of writing in this guy, (as I understand it) a resident of the PA-10:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sanderson
I’m open to other suggestions. Happily we have some serious Democrats running for this district. I’ll be voting for whoever wins through to oppose Perry. My preferred candidate is George Scott or Shavonia.
FOR 87th Legislative District
Greg Rothman - UN-FLERKANG-ACCEPTABLE
How in the hell did I ever end up with Rick Santorum’s butler as my State Legislator? Undervoting here seems insufficient expression of my level of discontent, but that Sanderson guy doesn’t live in the 87th. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Come November, I will be enthusiastically voting for Democrat Sean Quinlan.