vote!

the polls open here at 7 am tomorrow. i have to be at work by 10. so... i'll get up at 7 and head up the street to get in line to vote. sounds like a good plan.

i've been sitting on my couch with the state voters' pamphlet and a glass of wine for the past 2 hours, figuring out who and what i'll be voting for. this is probably the most effort i've put into figuring this stuff out for any election. but it's important, eh.

just for the record, here's how i'm voting tomorrow (click below for the gory details):

senator - p. murray (d)
representative - j. mcdermott (d)
governor - c. gregoire (d)
lt. governor - b. owen (d)
secretary of state - j. passey (l)
state treasurer - m. murphy (d)
state auditor - j. bush (l)
attorney general - d. senn (d)
commissioner of public lands - m. cooper (d)
superintendent of public instruction - j. billings
insurance commissioner - s. steele (l)
state representative - voting libertarian
state justice #1 - j. johnson
state justice #5 - b. madsen
state justice #6 - r. sanders
superior judge #23 - a. darvas
superior judge #42 - c. moore

you can see that i'm kinda split between voting democrat and voting libertarian. yeah, makes lots of sense, doesn't it? lemme just say that i'm voting democrat where i think that if a republican wins, bad things will happen, and i'm voting libertarian where i think it will make a difference without screwing people over. i'm sure that's a great explanation. as for the judges, i'm voting on a cursory examination of their civil liberties record.

state initiative 872 (top 2 candidates from all parties in the primary go on to the general election) - against
this is a really stupid idea. i mean, it has potential, if say voters had to choose between a republican and a libertarian on the ballot, but in practice i think it would remove 3rd party candidates from the ballot altogether.

state initiative 884 (increase retail sales tax by 1% for public schools) - for
i always vote to increase public schools' funding. i have no problem paying extra sales tax or whatever if the money goes to education.

state initiative 892 (allow gambling places like horse race tracks to use pseudo-slot machines) - for
i see gambling as a tax on either math skills, luck, or general intelligence. i'm all for it.

state referendum 55 (authorize charter public schools) - against
charter schools are a bad idea. they rarely work out. i'm all for reforming the existing public schools, not bailing out of them with charter schools.

state initiative 297 (add a bunch of extra legislation onto how washington state handles hazardous waste) - against
this is the one that i understand the least, but from what i can tell, it's just extra legislation on something that's already properly regulated.

king county charter amendment (decrease county council from 13 to 9) - against
it sounds like it's removing representation in the county council. and that's bad. it's kind of a hairy issue, but from what i understand, the system works in its current state.

king county advisory measure #1 (vote in 2005 on locally funded transportation plan to fix up a bunch of bottleneck bridges and add some light rail and whatnot) - for
sounds good to me. more transit options is the way to go.

king county advisory measure #2 (how to pay for transit plans) - increase local gas tax
the way i see it, the more that gasoline costs, the more people will want to buy fuel-efficient vehicles and take alternative transit. myself included.

seattle initiative 83 (make the current monorail expansion plan illegal) - against
seriously. they've been voting on this thing for years now. build the damn monorail already.


so i'm sure that gives you plenty of insight into my little brain. time to go to bed now so i can wake up early and vote.