I voted today.
I've voted in every election since I've lived here in Harnett County, NC, despite what the "your voting record sucks compared to your neighbors" mailers from various spammers (on both sides*) say.
Normally I vote for the Democrat in everything, unless it's a "nonpartisan" race, in which case I sit in the car and look up all my options on my phone and pick the one whose sales pitch contains the least amount of religion, fearmongering, dogwhistles, and general libertarian bullshit. As such I usually say "no thanks" to the nice people handing out sample ballots (a little less than) fifty feet from the door of the polling place. Today started no different. I went around the long way to avoid all the cold-looking people (a chilly 50ish this morning!)
Are you riveted yet? This is my first diary! More below!
So anyway, as I was walking across the parking lot toward the polling place, a hippie-looking dude - would not have been out of place in Burlington, VT - saw me and came over and asked if I'd like a "common sense" ballot. For some reason, maybe because I'm a secretly closeted hippie, I took the bait and said, "common sense?"
He laughed and said, "well, it's the Democratic ballot, but most importantly you should vote for Joe Langley ..." etc. He was about to go into some stuff about fracking, but I pretty much interrupted him and said that that was exactly how I planned to vote. I declined the Joe Langley card (because what would I do with it?) but accepted the sample ballot.
It is literally titled "Common Sense Choices"! On the bottom it says "Paid for by the Harnett County Democratic Party", but still. I wonder what the Republican one says... actually, I wouldn't be surprised if that says Common Sense too :)
Anyway, I've never seen this before. Is this a new clever scheme to try to make it seem OK to vote for commie liberal hippie big-government candidates in a mostly-redneck, mostly-conservative, mostly non-city-folk-to-whom-the-phrase-"common-sense"-appeals part of the south? I am cautiously of the opinion that it's cool. I suspect that there could be more appeal, at least here in the center of NC, less than an hour from Raleigh and Durham and Chapel Hill, in being proud so-whatcha-gonna-do-about-it Democrats rather than couching our affiliation in doublespeak. But maybe I'm wrong - this district did elect Ronald Rabin. In any case I think it's clever and worth a shot.
After I parted ways with Common Sense Dude, a woman with a Ronald Rabin sticker approached and started to say "I know he said it's a Common Sense ballot but ..." I cut her right off with a "No thanks!" She looked stunned. It felt awesome. She asked if I was sure, I gave her the most curt of nods and proceeded to vote for a whole bunch of Democrats.
* I received a bunch from the "G"OP, but also two from the Sierra Club. I don't know much about the Sierra Club but the mailer does mention that "[some elected officials] are intentionally making it harder for people like you to vote." It appears that the Sierra Club is not (or at least does not think that I am) pro-voter-ID, so I'm with them on that.