Vote November 4

November 3rd, 2008

I like making a voting guide (cheat sheet) for myself.  The process forces me to spend time researching the issues and the candidates, which is almost as important as voting.

obama-change

This will be the first time I voted outside of California in 13 years, and Illinois is a bit different – each name has a unique number in parenthesis (great for cheat sheets), and no state or city propositions on the ballot, just elected officials (mostly judges). Voting on Election Day goes from 6am to 7pm in Chicagoland.

USA
President: (1) Obama/Biden, Democrat
US Senator: (10) Kathy Cummings, Green
US Representative, 4th District: (13) Luis V Gutierrez, Democrat

ILLINOIS
Constitutional Convention: No
State Senator, 20th District: (17) Iris Y Martinez, Democrat
State Representative, 39th District: (21) Jeremy Karpen, Green
Metro. Water Recl. District Comm. choose 3 of 9: (29,30,31) Picking all 3 Green candidates
State’s Attorney: (32) Anita Alvirez
Clerk of Circuit Court: (35) Dorothy A Brown
Recorder of Deeds: (38) Eugene Moore
Board of Review, 2nd District: (41) Joseph Berrios
Judges:  Only one choice, skipping this section.

Basically I am voting either democrat or green.  It was difficult to find details on local candidates, I would often have to google for a specific name and the office they were running for to get information.  However I did like this Chicago Voting How-To Guide and thevoterguide.org.  Also check out a sample ballot for my neighborhood.

This is also the first time Illinois is offering early voting for a presidential election – 18 days (?) ending October 30, 2008.  260k people voted early, which is about 5% of the total Illinois votes cast for president in 2004.