Last minute question on how to vote..

Capitalizt

Banned
Nov 28, 2004
1,513
0
0
Is it necessary to fill in an entire ballot for it to be properly tabulated?

Will there be any harm for instance in voting for President and Senator, and leaving all of the congressional, state, & local races blank?

Also, what happens if you select the "straight ticket" vote for a single party...then fill in the circle beside one of the candidates below also? I have heard that doing this may cancel the ballot out resulting in a "non-vote". Is this true?
 

Drakkon

Diamond Member
Aug 14, 2001
8,401
1
0
You don't have to mark every race. Any race where you don't mark a choice it won't count as a vote on either side. Its like a null vote for that particular race/proposition/initiative/etc. This is how it is where I live at least (NV).

If you mark "straight ticket" than also mark anything else you run the risk of having your vote being "provisional" meaning they put it off to the side and save it to be hand checked - unlikely to get counted at all if the race is a landslide in one particular direction for every single question.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
87,763
54,793
136
You can vote for as many different people or as few people on the ballot as you want. If you don't know the people in a race, don't care about it, or don't like them, you can just ignore it.
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
25,966
4,574
126
You can (1) vote yes, (2) vote no, or (3) leave it blank. I generally leave anything blank that I don't care about or that I can't make an informed decision.

Most of the time they will compare the tally for yes votes to the tally for no votes and which ever one has more wins. But I do believe that in some locations and in some situations there is a subtle difference. In some rare cases they compare the number of yes votes to the number of total ballots to determine the winner. In that case, a blank vote is essentially a no vote. But this is rare. You should be told (often repeatedly in advetisements) which is the case in issues that matter.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,592
6,715
126
I look to see if they've ever been in Rev. Wright's church. If so they're good to go.
 

Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
8,356
9
81
Just vote for whatever you like, still going to count for what you did. That's what I did when I went a couple weeks ago. I see no need to place my vote when there's only 1 person running for that office, still going to get in whether I place that vote for them or not.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,397
8,563
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Originally posted by: DEMO24
Just vote for whatever you like, still going to count for what you did. That's what I did when I went a couple weeks ago. I see no need to place my vote when there's only 1 person running for that office, still going to get in whether I place that vote for them or not.

on the other hand, i like picking winners so i always vote for those running unopposed
 

TallBill

Lifer
Apr 29, 2001
46,017
62
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Originally posted by: ElFenix
Originally posted by: DEMO24
Just vote for whatever you like, still going to count for what you did. That's what I did when I went a couple weeks ago. I see no need to place my vote when there's only 1 person running for that office, still going to get in whether I place that vote for them or not.

on the other hand, i like picking winners so i always vote for those running unopposed

I do a write-in for those ones, because I'm all for the underdog.
 

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
19,441
86
91
Make sure you don't leave any hanging chads when you vote on Wednesday.