A Day in the Election Trenches
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59 responses to “A Day in the Election Trenches”
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Glad you were there. Hope the confused voters figured things out.
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And Thank God the Dems held the Senate and the Republicans lost the House!
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It may be too early to celebrate. From what I can see, there are several really tight races with a lot of early ballots still to count.
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Multiple outlets reporting Dems take the majority in the House and have held the Senate.
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Not at 3AM.
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Yes. Thank God. Seeking a new zip code. Out of state. Message received.
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Yeah… that’ll happen.
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I am held hostage for 2 more years.
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You’re a Republican. You’ve been held hostage for longer than that.
All my life I’ve heard Republicans mostly say, “government should fear the people”. Well, one party does and it ain’t the Democrats. One party is paralyzed with fear and it ain’t the Democrats.
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I guess I will have to settle for tying a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree!
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Thanks for the write up. It’s always interesting to get a view from the inside. This is how elections are supposed to go in this country: local, peaceful, even mundane.
Can’t wait for the signs to come down.
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Dream on! The next round of signs will be going up no later than January. Hell, I see Trump signs that have never come down since 2016 all over in my neck of the woods.
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Early voting in VA for Super Tuesday starts Jan. 19.
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Busy that day. Marse Robert’s birthday.
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That’s a depressing thought.
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Did anyone check to see if the GOP actually voted early?
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Youngkin said he was “humbled” to even be mentioned as a presidential possibility…
NOW, he’s been humbled.
How’s that “15 weeks seems reasonable” working for ya, Bubba? Tell me again how Democrats want to abort at 36 weeks…
Your voice dries up if you don’t use it. -Patti Page, singer (8 Nov 1927-2013)
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Are we in Virginia?
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Well, it ain’t Kansas.
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The constitutional amendment enshrining abortion as a right, and indeed making it hard to regulate at all, will be among the first things introduced in the New Blue GA.
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Whoa?! Did a Republican just use the phrase “hard to regulate”?
God Bless Donald Trump.
(turnabout is fair play) -
All that is required is to revive HB 2491 and pass it, they don’t even have to write a new one.
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Whoa?! Did a Republican just use the phrase “hard to regulate”?
God Bless Donald Trump.
(turnabout is fair play) -
All that is required is to revive HB 2491 and pass it, they don’t even have to write a new one.
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I see that Susanna Gibson (the Democrat porn star) lost, but narrowly. Years ago, similar behavior would have been a total turn off for voters of either party.
I wonder what she will do now? Sounds like she was making good money online.
https://www.vpap.org/electionresults/20231107/house-of-delegates-57/
Thanks Dick. I’ve done the election official gig and the hours are TERRIBLE! And in most elections , there is a fair amount of thumb-twiddling… then you have to stay late to observe the tallying and such.
And then apparently, you STILL had enough energy to write this!
thank you!
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We were short of elections officials. One called in sick Tuesday morning and one was a no-show. We had the minimum needed to staff each of the posts. Because there was a steady stream of voters, there was not much time for thumb-twiddling. The only official who was not occupied almost all the time was the official assigned to curbside voting outside. We rotated among assignments, but I never drew that one. Too bad, it was a really nice day. Being occupied most of the time helped the time pass quickly.
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We did rotate but we had more people than we needed and waking up at 4am to get to the polls by 5am and staying til 8:30-9pm was too much for me. Did you get introduced to the gizmo that is for blind voters ? I never did curb-side either… We had very minimal training… everything depended on the “Chief” to work right…
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Here’s an opinion :
I have asked if a candidate wants to represent the prevailing sentiment of a majority of the voters in their district, or does a candidate have their own values and philosophies that they try
to convince voters is better/more right than the voters views?
Conventional wisdom says that most voters are not one issue voters …. typically/normally, and it may not be on abortion but in some respects, the GOP better hope it’s only the abortion issue they stepped in.
Will the GOP/Youngkin take another look at their positions on
abortion and perhaps make changes or will that be considered
abandoning their “principles”?
Looks like the voters did not buy in Va the GOP and Youngkin’s promoted restrictions much less the idea it would give him
both houses of the GA.
Now, will the GOP/Youngkn seek to actually listen to and represent the majority of voters?
In my mind, it goes back to the idea of whether a candidate wants to know and represent the sentiment of voters or do they prefer to “promote” to voters, “more conservative” values?
Can a GOP get elected in a suburban area? Yes, all the time – if they LISTEN to voters and not the party line of their party.
They COULD be a majority in both houses in the GA if they actually represent voters and not hard core conservative ideology.
That’s my take and let’s hear others.
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I think the voters may be saying stop with the culture war issues on both sides and just give us good governance – oh, and stay out of my private life also. See Loudoun County results and tell me I am wrong.
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I”m not familiar enough with the names to know the party affiliation but it appears the Dems did well and it was Culture War Central.
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Could be , Spotsylvania voters booted the GOP culture warriors that had a majority.
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Normally a reliable voter, I have not voted since I voted
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“Normally a reliable voter, I have not voted since I voted”
Me neither… 😂
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Vote early and often…
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(some unknown force was blocking me from typing into BR for 10-minutes or so)
Normally a reliable voter, I have not voted since I voted Kasich over Trump in 2016 primaries. Disenfranchised is the word. Both Va. parties insist on being in our faces with B.S. political preferences. World War 3 upon us but internal hate fights inside US/Va. is our priority
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I voted against Trump in the primary as well.
Kasich, however, proved to be just a self promoter rather than someone who’s motivation was to do what’s best for the country.
There was a long period when Trump was winning primaries, but only with a plurality, not a majority. If people like Kasich had dropped out once it was clear that they had zero chance of winning, the opposition to Trump might have carried the day.
As it was, Kasich pulled votes away from other viable Republican candidates like Cruz who had a chance of winning. I will never forgive him for that.
What the hell drug are you on that you can do that 15 hour day and then write something? Sheesh. I’m only up now because I’ve learned to go to bed and then check results in the AM….
We had about a similar turnout in Henrico’s Maybeury. My R friends won it, but not by the margins they needed obviously. Heavy wave of younger voters with abortion, abortion, abortion clearly the only issue they were voting on. Heavily female.
My thoughts all day were about the presidential turnout next year and how all these changes since 2020 are going to make that horrible. Please, please, please — more of you vote early and if you have moved, make bloody sure you tell the Board of Elections in a timely manner. 🙂
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Voter turnout was strong considering it was a GA and local only. But some strange turnout numbers for sure. Fauquier 84% turnout. Next county to the east Prince William just 38%. I got what I wanted for my local races. So sad to see Segura lose to Russet in Senate 31. Redistricting changed my senator from Jill Vogel to a deep lap dog blue.
https://enr.elections.virginia.gov/results/public/Virginia/elections/2023-Nov-Gen-
It’s just the intended result of the redraw.
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Fauquier is about to be politically annexed into NOVA.
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It was already moving that way anyways. They see spots for their McMansions on all that farm land. Priced themselves out of Loudoun, so gotta move somewhere.
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He’s high on life. Liberals tend to be so.
Abortion was the loud issue, but losing propositions run clean to the bottom of the Republican bag. How’d the Moms for Liberty do? Abortion isn’t an issue at the school board meetings. Oops.
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This is my bailiwick. Believe me. The game is all about turnout, who shows up who might have stayed home. The turnout driver was abortion, then they get handed a blue sample ballot for the down ticket races. I saw them in their hands as I passed out the ballots.
Trump is also Democrat turnout magnet par excellence. Some Rs love him but ALL D’s hate him.
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It would be interesting to see R vs D turnout figures for the key races. My impression is that R turned out (similar to Youngkin’s election) but D’s did not. Expect the results to skew more Blue next year therefore.
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Take our rights, lose your job.
“ More than 6 in 10 (63%) of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents think that the party should not be too accepting of elected officials who openly criticize Trump. Three in 10 say the party should not accept any criticism of Trump from its elected officials.
Compare that to the 6 in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who say their side should be at least somewhat accepting of elected officials who criticize President Joe Biden and you have some sense of just how much the Republican Party has devolved into a simple cult of personality.”
When I was a young man, the few foreigners I met were always amazed by how openly Americans criticized their leaders. I used to like telling them that if they wanted to, they could come here and criticize them too. It’s not a bug; it’s a feature.
Reading comments from retiring Republican Congressman (I’ll get links if you want them, but I know you have seen them) who have said they were afraid of death threats and assaults on themselves and their families kept them from voting for Trump’s impeachment is what will kill your party.
Fear and fear itself, eh?
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I can understand concerns about Trump. I have many myself.
What is killing the legitimacy of Democrat opposition is the willingness to do “whatever is necessary” to attack him. Laws and ethics are twisted into pretzels to get him.
Troubling Trump statements – real
Trump Derangement Syndrome – also real
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He’s a criminal. Prone to doing what suits him.
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It’s funny, They keep saying he talks “bad” as if he just has a mouth and never actually did anything. like J6 or the people who actively went out to corrupt the elections. There’s a long list of folks that used to work for him that say he’s a direct threat to the country if he gets to be POTUS again.
Doesn’t faze some folks…
to them.. he just “talks bad”.
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Like COVID he’s a pernicious virus that just needs to burn himself out, but those with the political Long Covid will remain very, very ugly.
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This is new for Republicans. They’ve no natural immunity. Democrats have always been scared by “religious right” and the fanatical right (aka 4/9 of the SCOTUS), but this is the first time 2/3 of Republicans have seen just how scary the other 1/3 of their party really is. Thomas, for example, had no problem after Dobbs saying “contraceptives and gays are next”. Alito was thrilled to cite some whack job from the 15th century.
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Indeed. Not see or refuse to see?
It’s like the GOP is glued to the ground on this. They can sway, twist and turn, but they cannot move.
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I occurred to me today that much of what we saw in results last night was the result of not having a gerrymandered electoral map.
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It definitely had an impact on some races.
Net result has neutered Youngkin on what he wanted to do but OTOH, the Dems do not have enough votes to overturn a veto on narrowly passed legislation.
Could be interesting to see if Youngkin still wants to “govern” but not in the way he preferred.
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It definitely had an impact on some races.
Net result has neutered Youngkin on what he wanted to do but OTOH, the Dems do not have enough votes to overturn a veto on narrowly passed legislation.
Could be interesting to see if Youngkin still wants to “govern” but not in the way he preferred.
Just want to say thank you for going out and helping to conduct the election. Citizen participation and hence, citizen oversight is important.
A common complaint was that the candidates for local office were not identified by party. Numerous voters asked us to identify the candidates on the ballot by party.
“Local candidates” are, in fact, Constitutional Officers that by law are non-partisan and are not identified by party affiliation.
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