It's election day

[aurora]

Has everyone voted? Any interesting races to watch on your area?

[aurora]

There are only a few things to decide on my ballot this year (mayor, city council, school board, and a few state and local initiatives). I clearly should have done more research earlier, because one of the statewide propositions was incredibly confusing! It tied property taxes together with school funding and tax refunds in a way that I honestly struggled to figure out whether I should consider it a progressive policy or not. (I did figure out that it is, but mostly by understanding that the governor supports it.)

Today I read a piece from local public radio that made me feel a bit less dumb - essentially saying it's confusing everyone. I won't be surprised if it fails for that reason alone.

[StrawberryBlondie]

There are no elections for me to vote in today.

[Pom]

I’m hearing good turn out in Ohio. Anyone else?

[wanderingback]

I’m about to go in about 30 minutes.

The elected positions are all uneventful as there is no opposition.
There are 2 non exciting proposals that I had to research what they meant. But I’ll still go exercise my right to vote….especially cause I had the day off from work.

I hope everyone in Ohio has voted!!!

[penguingrrl]

Here in NJ our entire state house and senate are up today, so fairly big election. We also had school board elections.

On the K-8 school board we had 4 candidates for 3 places. Two are dems who I know and respect and was excited to vote for. One is a republican but she has been on our school board a while and has done excellent work. The other candidate came out of nowhere and was endorsed by several right wing groups (including one that emerged out of the anti mask movement) so I’m hoping he doesn’t win. He and his wife scrubbed their personal and his board of education facebook pages clean of anything remotely political or partisan and entirely focused on how often he has been a volunteer rec coach, so he scares me a lot. (Our local K-8 school board is so small I personally know most of these people and there were absolutely no public meetings, debates, anything for disseminating information)

Our HS board member was a racist asshole who is running unopposed. He’s been on the board for 3 years and seemed fine and around town he was personable. Then over the summer (after it was too late for someone to run against him officially) he started going on awful rants against affirmative action and in favor of “parental rights to information about their kid.” So a dem who I love who is a retired educator launched a write-in campaign against him. The dem won’t win but I’m hoping he gets his name out there to run in the future because this gentleman would be amazing.

[erbear]

Philadelphia is about to elect its first female mayor!!

[UMaineTeach]

Our biggest question is will we allow the state to purchase all for profit electric utilities companies and create a state owned electric utility.

It has bad idea written all over it.

There’s a backstop question that says, if the state takes over electric utilities and wants to spend more than a billion dollars (currently the estimated cost is 6-13 billion) the voters have to approve the expense.

So, there’s no way this doesn’t end up in court.

We had 3 candidates for 2 council seats and 2 candidates for 3 school board seats. None are particularly good, but only one I know is a bad choice.

[BicycleBride]

The Kentucky gubernatorial race should be worth national attention. The incumbent democrat won a very tight race four years ago against the then incumbent republican who had a lot of Trump-esque vibes. The Republican challenger now is the current attorney general and there were rumors that McConnell had picked him to be his successor. Both Beshear (incumbent democratic governor) and Cameron (republican challenger) have national ambitions.

[stinkyfeet]

I took my just turned 18 year old to vote for the first time today. It was great. All the poll workers were super excited for her.

[Jalapeñomel]

We voted here!

[ellipses84]

Eta: @-ish

There was a special local election for a district that surrounds mine on 2 sides (which I think are weird boundaries) but no voting for me.

I was so proud to see my first time voter goddaughter and her friends being vocal on social media about voting for women’s rights (and weed lol) in Ohio!

[kiminky]

Dave Wasserman is calling it for Beshear. Also,the KY governor's race has been a consistent presidential bellwether for the last 20 years.

[fortnightlily]

I only had a local race for my city.

[scm1011]

Not expecting any surprises at my city elections today but voted regardless. I was super happy to vote for a friend for City Council, he’s going to be fantastic. Also excited to see our resident Trump wannabe lose his 3rd or 4th straight mayoral bid (the city went ~85% for Biden, there is no chance in hell).

[msmerymac]

PA has only one statewide election - a race to replace a Supreme Court justice who died last year. The court is currently 4-2 with Dems in the majority, so it wouldn’t change the balance of the court, but it’s he closest thing to a bellwether we have about how conservative PA might be feeling before next year’s election.

[rosiebear]

Let’s goooooo, Ohio! Looking good on abortion rights so far.

[shopgirl07]

I’m interested to see what will happen in Mississippi. I had no idea a democrat was in play in the governor’s race. Tate Reeves is awful, but that’s never been an impediment for Republican voters.

[keyslover]

Minneapolis City Council is all up for election. We have some hot races in some wards. . .polls close in about 20 minutes.

*Everyone is up for election because of redistricting, it is only for a 2 year term and then we will get back on schedule.

[katfco]

I voted in Ohio at 6:45 this morning and our little precinct was busy! Both the abortion and marijuana issues are looking good. It also looks like we managed to keep a Moms for Liberty candidate off our school board.

[candreco]

It's a big one in VA, all state senate and house of delegates seats are up, plus school board and county executive board, and a handful of seats like sheriff and commonwealth attorney.

I'm nervous for the balance of power in the senate and house, dems have a narrow majority in one and reps do in the other. With Youngkin currently governor I would feel a lot better with both chambers controlled by dems.

[tealblue]

Ohio yay! Kentucky yay!!

I’m in the Midwest and we had a competitive mayoral race. Historically a purplish/red city with lots of R’s lately, but none of the R’s won tonight. All races were won by democrats which is crazy.

Hoping all this momentum rolls into next year’s election!

[Velar Fricative]

My ballot today was just stupid (no opposition for incumbents at all, most of whom are terrible). So definitely focusing more on the races elsewhere.

[somersault72]

My precinct in Ohio was busy. Turnout was good, I think. I live in a bar shit crazy Trumpster area right outside a blue area so I had no sense of reality when it came to how I thought the abortion issue was going to go (Vote No signs everywhereeeee). I'm beyond relieved and proud that people came out and did the right thing.
And I live right across the river so it's
abortion, weed, Beshear all night. I'm THRILLED.

[redheadbaker]

I worked at my polling place today (in PA). We had pretty good turnout considering it wasn't a presidential election year.

[aurora]

Nov 7, 2023 21:17:32 GMT -5 candreco said:

It's a big one in VA, all state senate and house of delegates seats are up, plus school board and county executive board, and a handful of seats like sheriff and commonwealth attorney.

I'm nervous for the balance of power in the senate and house, dems have a narrow majority in one and reps do in the other. With Youngkin currently governor I would feel a lot better with both chambers controlled by dems.

CNN is showing Ds leading in both right now!

[pixy0stix]

I really hope the school board doesn't get taken over by the right wing nutjobs that are running. One definitely will get in because he's running unopposed. We also had a couple of city specific tax increases to vote for.

ETA: Most of the city council was up for election, just not my district.

[Susie]

I voted, but it was a quiet year locally.  The only really contested race was for highway superintendent, lol.  

[SusanBAnthony]

Looks like the bad mayor candidate in my town will lose.

For city council we had:
1. My friend
2. A hippie environmentalist
3. An incumbent who is not smart
4. A super old guy who I thought had died, who had been on the council and was voted off and is running again, and who is truly awful.

I voted for 1 and 2. Looks like 2 and 3 will win. But the new mayor will open up a council seat that will be appointed until the term ends.

[lilac05]

@@@ We had a huge School Board election. 4 of 7 open seats with one Moms for Liberty already on board. They basically split into clear teams: M4L vs NOT M4L.

The good guys won! Almost 60% of the votes. In Iowa!

So far as I’ve seen Moms for Liberty candidates lost consistently all across IOWA!

I’ve hated this state for so many reasons, but this gives me some hope. Maybe we can move back to the middle now. Iowa used to not be absurdly backwards not that long ago!

I’m feeling so much relief tonight.