Is it worth it to cast one’s ballot in advance of Election Day? I’d say so

I’m going to be headed to an early voting center some time this week to cast my ballot in advance of the Nov. 6 general election, yet I realize there are some people who do not approve.

Imagery dated, but sentiment the same

And not just because they realize I’m highly unlikely to support the re-election bid of Bruce Rauner – or anybody whose campaign is predicated on the notion of wanting to strengthen the political hand of Donald Trump during the next two years.

THERE ARE THOSE who believe we honestly need to wait until the absolute last minute to learn every single bit of information they can about the candidates before deigning to cast a ballot for anybody.

They actually see merit in the last-minute disclosures in the final weeks, sometimes even days, of the campaign. Usually nasty and spiteful in nature, they want to know these bits of dirt that can sway people to vote against someone.

They’d argue I might wind up voting for someone for whom a scuzzy bit of detail exists. As though there’s anything legitimate about these tidbits of trivial detail.

You may have figured out by now that I don’t think much of these “October Surprise” tactics – which mostly are meant to discourage people who are contemplating support for a particular candidate.

IN SHORT, I’M convinced that anybody who’s seriously holding out detail until the final days of the election cycle is more interested in playing partisan political games rather than disclosing information that truly has any significance.

And I say that regardless of which political party is waiting until the final minute before disclosing their gossipy tidbit. Because I truly admit all political parties are capable of such nonsense tactics.

Seriously, we in Illinois had our primary elections back in March. We’ve had seven months to study the candidates and figure out what they stand for – and who they’d be supportive of if they were to get elected.

Just as much nonsense rhetoric as there was a century or so ago

Which, in all honestly, is what most of us base our ballot actions upon. Most of us are nowhere near as high-minded idealistic as we’d like to claim to be.

TAKE THE RECENT lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court against the J.B. Pritzker campaign, claiming mistreatment of its campaign workers who happened to be of racial or ethnic backgrounds (a.k.a., non-white).

The idea of J.B., the Democrat, being a closet bigot was supposed to be what took him down to defeat despite the huge leads he had in the polls.. Yet there has been such skepticism over the lawsuit’s merits that the people behind the legal action felt forced to have a press conference Monday, trotting out the disgruntled campaign workers, to try to sway the public.

Excuse me for thinking that any accusations that come out in future days will be of even less legitimacy than this lawsuit. Anybody who seriously is waiting to learn something significant is waiting for nothing.

As in they might as well go ahead and cast that ballot of theirs now. Because ultimately, every ballot we cast is a gamble. Everybody is going to have candidates with whom we placed too much faith in, and other instances where it turns out that the opposition candidate was probably deserving of our vote.

Anything more to know about either … 

BESIDES, WHAT HAPPENS if we wind up learning something on Nov. 7, or 10 or perhaps in December? Do we start demanding a “do over,” with the option of changing our vote to the person whom we wished we had voted for? Just as there's no crying in baseball, there's no do-overs in elections!

I really don’t think there would be anything gained by holding out until Nov. 6 before casting my ballot. If anything, this is an election cycle where I wish I could have cast a ballot some two months ago so it would be over and done with by now.

… of these candidates that's relevant?

So I’m likely to show up at a polling place this week to cast my vote – because I can time my vote to when the lines to wait are miniscule and because I’m a firm believer that people who don’t vote have no riht to complain about government actions.

Anybody who really knows me knows full well I’m a malcontent who insists on complaining about everyone and anything I encounter in life. If anything, such active thought is how we truly “make America great again,” not by holding out ‘til the last minute for any trivia that in the long run may turn out to be totally irrelevant to public policy.

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There’s a perfectly-good reason they call this time of year the ‘silly season’

We’re one month away from Election Day, as in when we the electorate declare our partisan intentions and decide whom each of the political parties will have on the ballot come the Nov. 6 general elections.

BISS: The $56 man?

Which means we’re already enduring more than our share of stupidity in the name of politics – and we’re going to get 30 more days between now and the primaries.

YOU COULD CUT short the amount of time you have to care about such nonsense if you decide to cast your ballot at an early voting center. March 5 is the day people can start showing up to express themselves early.

Yet we’re enduring all kinds of stunts.

Such as the one by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Daniel Biss – who officially pulled out his checkbook and wrote out a $56 check to his own campaign.

It was supposed to be a mocking of the $7 million more than overly-wealthy opponent J.B. Pritzker gave to himself – bringing his total campaign fund to $56.7 million.

BISS, IN A video snippet he posted on Facebook, said he can’t come close to matching that amount of money. So instead, he coughed up $56 – while asking individuals to also donate $56, in hopes that the overall total will add up to something significant.

PRITZKER: Biss tries to mock his millions

While also trying to make a deeper point that Biss, a one-time mathematics teacher turned state senator from Evanston, is closer to being like everyday people than Pritzker.

Or even the other Democratic challenger, Chris Kennedy, whom Biss claims has given some $1.2 million of his own money to his gubernatorial campaign. Which means that no matter who wins a month from now, there is going to be a lot of self-money wasted on political fantasy.

While also showing that Biss’ own level of support is limited to the point where one could argue a vote cast for him is a vote wasted.

THE ONE THING I do know is that I probably shouldn’t go wearing a “Biss” campaign button on the day I show up at a polling place. I usually don’t give much thought to what I wear for that occasion – other than that I’ll get that sticker reading “I Voted!” to paste on myself that day.

Campaigning by intimidation?

It seems, however, that the Supreme Court of the United States is going to give thought to this issue. A week from Wednesday, the nation’s high court will hear arguments in a case out of Minnesota – where Tea Party-type activists are challenging state laws that required them to cover up the party t-shirts they wanted to wear while voting.

It may be subtle, but I don’t doubt it is intimidation in its own form. Just as I suspect every jackass who insists on wearing one of those ridiculous “Make America Great Again” caps is looking to provoke a reaction from everybody who doesn’t agree with them.

Although it’s not as blunt as a few years ago, when on Election Day, a polling place worker insisted on saying “Don’t Vote for the Son” as he guided us to empty ballot machines – remember Todd Stroger (the son of John) running for Cook County Board president re-election in 2010?

I ALSO GOT my chuckle from a campaign mailing I received from Patricia Joan Murphy – who’s running for the Cook County Board seat her late mother (Joan Patricia Murphy) held for many years.

Thorough instructions

The mailing included postcards I could send in to the county clerk’s office so that I can cast my ballot by mail. I don’t even have to show up at a polling place.

The card is actually an application to Cook County to send me a ballot to fill out at home. And for what it’s worth, Murphy’s postcards are already marked in a way to ensure I’m sent a Democratic Party primary ballot. How thoughtful (heavy sarcasm intended) of her.

It’s almost enough to make me want to pick a Republican ballot. But then I’d have to be confronted with the thought of the worst of evils between Gov. Bruce Rauner and challenger Jeanne Ives. Too nauseating to contemplate.

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Early voting a perk or scam? Or just a reason for malcontents to complain?

The early voting centers for Cook County opened this week, which means some people have already managed to cast their vote for Hillary vs. The Donald, and all the other political posts that are up for grabs this election cycle.

Cook County Clerk David Orr was among those who used Early Voting on Monday. Photo provided by county clerk's office

I didn’t get a chance to do so Monday, but likely will find time to do so in the next few days. The reporter-type person in me finds it easier to deal with working on Election Day if I don’t have to take time to wait at a polling place for my turn to cast a ballot.

I’M SURE MANY other people find a similar convenience, which justifies in their minds use of an early voting center. Of course, I’d argue anything that encourages more people to vote is a good thing. As it is, more than 25,000 people used early voting centers in Cook County on the first day they were available – a new record that nearly doubles the old mark set Oct. 22, 2012!

The only people who want to limit the vote are those people who fear that the electorate will toss them out of political office on their fannies, Which is our right as the public to do. It’s certainly more our right than those people who want to make a crusade out of packing a pistol in public – and probably wish they could carry one into the polling place on the off-chance someone makes them feel threatened.

Perhaps being near people who find it within themselves to back Hillary Clinton will terrify all those Trump-types to the point where they feel compelled to let loose.

But the bottom-line is that early voting has become a convenience factor. And while I like the idea in theory of a single day in which the masses of our nation come together to express our political will, it just might not be practical.

I’VE BEEN THINKING quite a bit about this in recent days, ever since I happened to stumble onto an Indianapolis radio station that had a knuckleheaded host complain about the early-voting concept.

He views it as being borderline subversive. He wants it totally done away with.

He thinks anybody who actually votes early is being irresponsible and ought to have their ballot taken away from them.

For he argued with a straight voice (I’d say straight face, but being radio, I couldn’t see it) that people who cast their ballots prior to Election Day are depriving themselves the information they’d get about all the candidates if they waited.

AS IN HE thinks there is something special about the inevitable tidbit of sleaze that gets spewed right before Election Day; in hopes that one candidate can use to scare off voters from casting ballots for their opposition.

Considering that Trump’s daughter-in-law recently went on a television talk show and told of the last-minute surprise that Donald has in store for Hillary (what, she wouldn’t say. We’ll just have to wait and see), I would expect that Trump will come up with some borderline-libelous tidbit about Clinton.

Then again, his whole campaign has been nothing but classless drips and drabs that were meant to take down others – but have only served to show the electorate just how classless and tacky Trump himself is.

Actually, I believe anybody who seriously lets themselves get influenced by the last-minute nonsense is the one who is potentially reckless enough that we ought to think of taking away their ballot!

BESIDES, I CAN’T help but think that most people have privately made up their minds. Anybody who is so indecisive that they don’t know yet between Clinton and Trump is just being wishy-washy.

If anything, I have been ready for the final vote for weeks now. Besides, if we’re really supposed to wait for all the trivial tidbits that can be offered up, perhaps we should postpone Election Day. Give even more time for us to supposedly learn more dirt about the people who managed to get their political parties’ presidential nominations.

But that’s not going to happen. I suspect most people want this whole nonsensical process to end – and will be prepared to stone me for even jokingly hinting that it should last any longer than necessarily.

In short, when I cast my ballot, it will be to ensure I express my say in this electoral process – one that Trump has tried to delegitimize as much as he can perhaps because he knows it’s not rigged; and he fears the outcome of an honest election.

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EXTRA: People still voting when Quinn refused to concede defeat

I didn’t know it at the time late Tuesday, but there were people still waiting to cast ballots for the state, federal and county government elections at the very moment that Pat Quinn refused to concede defeat to likely Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner.

Quinn made what I’m sure he thinks is a high-minded statement about how he wants every single vote counted before he makes any statement about his political future.

I’M ALSO SURE that Rauner backers are already starting up the cheap rhetoric of Quinn being a “sore loser” because he won’t admit defeat. Even though I’m sure that cocky statement Rauner made late Tuesday to declare victory was written months in advance with no option possible if a few more city votes had been cast to put Quinn over the top.

There were polling places where problems arose early in the day, causing judges to order them to remain open late. For most, 7:30 p.m. was the closing time, although some were open as late as 9 p.m.

And that merely means somebody had to be in line by the time the polling place closed.

The Chicago Tribune reported about some city polling places where officials weren’t capable of working through the backlog of would-be voters until about 3 a.m. Wednesday.

THERE LITERALLY WERE people casting their votes about 8 hours after the polls were officially supposed to be closed. Or about three-and-a-half hours after Rauner said he was DA WINNER!!!

Of course, because the voters were given the option of registering on Tuesday to vote Tuesday, there will be many of those late votes that will be regarded as “provisional.”

Which means some sort of investigation will take place in coming days to ensure that the voters are legitimate and that their ballots should be included.

Which also means that some of the votes yet to be counted will wind up being excluded from the final vote tally – which will not be known until the Illinois State Board of Elections certifies the results on Dec. 5.

I’M REALISTIC ENOUGH to know it is not likely that Quinn can make up enough of his vote-deficit to win himself a second term in office.

But I’m also not going to get too worked up over Quinn’s lack of a concession statement last night. Because the only people who lose out are those ideologues whose victory isn’t complete unless they get the sight of someone groveling before them!

We all need to move on, and those people need to figure out  how to govern without offending the sensibilities of the true masses of our society.

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Who you gonna vote for? Do you or I really have much of a candidate choice?

It’s that time of year again. People can start casting their ballots Monday through Early Voting Centers for the March 18 primary elections.

I can't envision lines like this one from decades ago gathering at polling places this year across the state.

 

The public will get their say as to who should run the state government (and represent us at the federal level) come that date. And it’s likely that I will cast my own ballot sometime this week (allowing me to spend Election Day proper being a reporter-type person).

IN ACCORDANCE WITH my past policies, the Chicago Argus will make its endorsements (which are really nothing more than who I will vote for). I’ll take a Democratic Party ballot, which means I’ll be voting for Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., to have a fourth term in the U.S. Senate.

There also will be ballots cast for the pairing of Gov. Pat Quinn and Paul Vallas to be his lieutenant governor running mate, along with state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Secretary of State Jesse White, state Treasurer nominee Michael Freirichs and state Comptroller nominee Sheila Simon.

Which is about as unsurprising as things can get.

Because aside of the fact that Quinn is being challenged on paper by Tio Hardiman of suburban Hillside, none of these people have a challenger.
 

QUINN: Won't coast to win!

TAKING A DEMOCRATIC primary ballot this time around doesn’t really amount to having much of a choice. It largely is a sign of showing that we have less faith in the Republican ranters to do anything positive about state government than we do with the Democratic establishment that got us in our current state of affairs.

Although if we’re honest about things, the people who decide to pull a Republican Party ballot in the primary don’t have much more of a choice. Their Attorney General nominee (Paul Schimpf), Secretary of State pick (Michael Webster) and Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka are unopposed.

One-time Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross (who wants to be state treasurer) has a challenge from Bob Grogan, while would-be U.S. Sen. James Oberweis must get past Douglast Truax. Neither Grogan nor Truax appear capable of putting up much of a challenge.
 

RAUNER: Probably thinks he will!

And when it comes to governor, it really is a pick between two past losers (in William Brady and Kirk Dillard), a no-name candidate with no money (which is why the only thing we know about Dan Rutherford is that he’s facing a sexual harassment allegation) and a no-name candidate (Bruce Rauner) with so much money that he can buy an image. The Illinois Federation of Teachers' backing of Dillard is more a matter of him being the lesser of evils -- from their perspective.

WHETHER THAT IMAGE will stand through the Nov. 4 general election so as to get Rauner elected as governor, or whether the experienced politicos on the Democratic Party side can shatter it to pieces is really about the only real question to be decided in this year’s election cycle.

That, and whether Hardiman or Truax will suffer the bigger defeat from the March 18 primary.

My point is that the results of the upcoming primary seem to be fairly straight-forward. We might as well be focusing now on the general election cycle – and I’m sure there are certain individuals who wish we could just get the whole thing over and done with on March 18 – rather than having to endure nearly eight full months of more campaigning between the two parties.

We’ve got enough headaches just from the electioneering that has taken place between the GOP governor types to last us this campaign cycle. Rauner, in particular, seems to be about nothing more than voting against the incumbent – rather than anything he would try to achieve as governor.

WHICH IS TO say that anybody who thinks they’re going to mock me for picking a Democratic Party ballot this time around ought to be looking at the lackluster choices the other party offers up.

I usually am quick to criticize people who don’t bother to vote. I argue that casting a ballot is the price one must pay for the right to complain about their government.

Although with this particularly uninspiring field of candidates, this time I may have to admonish myself a time or two before I set foot in the voting booth.

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The bulk of you are lazy goofs who deserve whatever abuse government gives you during the next four years

I cast my ballot a couple of weeks ago – in the morning hours of Good Friday, to be exact.

I used one of the early voting centers so that I could get it out of the way and have my Tuesday free on the off-chance that I wind up spending the day as a reporter-type person trying to figure out how other people are voting.

YET THE HONEST truth is that the people I will be focusing on are NOT the bulk of our society.

For most of us are going to sit on our duffs and do nothing. If anything, the bulk of us will get irritated at the presence of elections, and act as though they ought not to take place at all.

Now I have made this argument before – and I suspect I will make it repeatedly for as long as I live. Those people who don’t vote are allowing government to run roughshod over them.

A good part of the reason I insist on casting a ballot (even in an election cycle like this one where the posts up for grabs were of no interest to anyone who didn’t live in my immediate community) is that I believe I am ensuring my right to complain for the next four years.

PEOPLE WHO CAN’T be bothered to cast a ballot really have no right to gripe!

So for the at least 80 percent of people who don’t bother to vote on Tuesday (the estimates are that, at best, 20 percent of the electorate will cast ballots), I don’t really want to hear your complaints.

You have your chance on Tuesday to have a say over how those local officials will spend your local tax dollars, and how all those local school districts and park boards and sanitary districts and other entities will operate – and you chose to remain silent!

Now having said that, I do realize that for many people, there isn’t much of a choice come this particular Election Day.

THE REALITY IS that in too many of those suburban communities, there is a local political establishment that tries to operate in as much anonymity as possible – and there isn’t any opposition.

In some cases, no one else could be bothered to challenge the incumbents. Not because of any real satisfaction, but because of apathy.

While in other places, local officials know how to game the electoral process to eliminate anyone who had the “gall” (in the incumbents’ opinion) to challenge them.

Is this what it takes to get people to vote?

And within Chicago proper, this is the election cycle where nothing is at stake – with the exception of those who live in the Far South Side and will be picking a replacement for Jesse Jackson, Jr., to represent them in Congress.

EVEN THERE, THE real election cycle came back in the special primary election held in February. Tuesday is likely the night that one-time state Rep. and Cook County CAO Robin Kelly gets rubber-stamped to go to Washington.

We can speculate all we want about the possibility of a long-shot victory for Republican Paul McKinley or Green Party-type LeAlan Ford – yet the key to a long-shot upset electoral victory is candidate interest.

Yet even so, I still felt compelled to cast my ballot. Like I said, I like to be able to complain about the status quo. Which in this case constitutes a rant about the bulk of people who on Tuesday seemed to only have interest in ignoring the fact that it is Election Day.

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The “Tea Party” made me do it – Dem votes a revolt against ideologue “takeover”

My polling place on Monday was much more technically advanced than this sketch of New Yorkers voting in 1900. But the sentiment of the individuals waiting to cast ballots remains the same.

I followed the lead of first lady Michelle Obama on Monday, spending some time in mid-day to go to an Early Voting Center and cast my ballot for the Nov. 2 general elections.

I suspect I followed her lead in another way, casting votes for a straight slate of candidates affiliated with the Democratic Party – which shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone who regularly (you three or four people know who you are) reads the commentary published here.

I GAVE MY support to Pat Quinn for governor and Alexi Giannoulias for U.S. Senate from Illinois. I cast a ballot against the one person on the Republican slate of candidates – Judy Baar Topinka – whom I have some respect for professionally and who under typical circumstances would have been the lone GOPer this year to receive my vote.

It’s those Tea Party types who have aroused my desire to identify so strongly this election cycle with the Democratic Party – not the actual candidates themselves (who admittedly have some flaws, albeit not so severe that I felt it necessary to deny them a vote).

All across the country, we have these ideologues who have their hang-ups about the electoral direction our nation took in 2008 toward the future, so they’re hoping their anger can enhance the natural fall-off that a president’s political party suffers in mid-term elections. For those of you who want to screech the name "Blagojevich!" in my face, I'd say that even if Milorod had behaved like a choirboy, your true hangups would be the same.

These ideologues are taking over the Republican Party and twisting it into a mechanism that they dream will be able to impose their will on so many social and economic issues. Now if I thought that the Green Party had candidates who were seriously capable of governing if elected, or that any of the political independents had a clue about government, then I’d be willing to give them the time of day.

INSTEAD, THE MOST credible candidate in Illinois among all those who don’t have a “D” or “R” after their names is Scott Lee Cohen. Even if he didn’t have all that personal baggage that creates a questionable character, he bothers me for being another business type who thinks that he can just leap into the top post on the strength of his willingness to self-finance a campaign.

So that left me with the Democrats, including Giannoulias, whom I didn’t vote for in the February primary election and still am not enthused about. But I couldn’t bring myself to cast a ballot for Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. Even though I realize the hard-core ideologues have their own concerns that Kirk isn’t conservative enough for them, I am realistic enough to know that this means Kirk (if he gets elected) is going to have to make significant gestures to appease his base.

Which means the North Shore congressman is more than capable of actions that will offend those of us with a bit more sense. This is the guy who once supported increased funding for efforts to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in Latin American nations. He’s capable of voting goofy to keep the ideologues happy.

As for Quinn, he got my vote because he doesn’t bother me and I’d like to see what he could do with a full four-year term of his own. He is the guy who has ticked off his own political party by suggesting that we need tax increases to help plug the $14 billion budget deficit facing state government.

WHICH I THINK is more realistic than Republican William Brady’s claims that this budget gap can be plugged primarily through cuts. I believe even Brady knows that such a thought is ridiculous, but he’s willing to say what he thinks his base wants to hear – regardless of how absurd it is.

I find it appropriate that Brady comes from Bloomington, the central Illinois city that also produced Adlai Stevenson II – who during his own presidential campaign in 1952 said: “The only way you could cut tens of billions from your budget would be to disband our armies, renounce our friends abroad, quit buying airplanes and guns, cancel our present defense orders and, presumably, crawl into a cave to await destruction.”

I realize that Stevenson was talking about federal government, not state. But the sentiment remains legitimate even now, nearly six full decades later. I wish Brady would pay attention to that thought.

Then again, I suspect the people who are most hard-core about backing Brady because they think he’s going to run amok through government with budgetary scissors enjoy that thought because they want certain programs cut entirely for ideological reasons, irregardless of whose interests get hurt.

SO IF IT means my vote for a straight Democratic Party slate of candidates is meant to spite the sentiment of those people, so be it.

Like I implied earlier, a desire to do something at the polling place that would be perceived as hostile toward those conservative ideologues even led me to vote for David Miller, a state legislator from suburban Lynwood, for Illinois comptroller.

Under typical circumstances, I could have easily voted for Topinka’s Republican campaign for that position. I respect the professionalism with which she operated the Illinois treasurer’s office for 12 years, and always enjoyed her quirky personality – which included an ability to get along with politicos of many parties.

There’s even the fact that the hard-core conservatives have their own hang-ups about Topinka because they don’t like her willingness to work with others.

AS FOR THE rest of my ballot, the Republican candidates were just so weak, I couldn’t take them seriously. All I had to see was the name “Ray Wardingley” to cast my ballot for Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. Or do you really believe the one-time “Spanky the Clown” belongs in Congress?

Now I’m realistic enough to know that Republican candidates will make electoral gains, both nationally and in Illinois. That may even be a good thing for us to have something of a balance if it forces the partisan sides to work together.

The problem I have with too much of the Republican rhetoric (particularly the stuff coming from the Tea Party types) is that it comes from people who are determined for total takeover so they can start imposing their own ideological agendas. Without that total control, they’re incapable of doing anything – which would be bad for all of us. If I thought these GOP candidates were interested in working with government to do “the people’s business,” I’d be willing to take them seriously.

They’re not, so I don’t. Which means I’m not about to give any of them the benefit of my vote.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE:  It’s a couple of years old, but Homer Simpson attempting to do his civic duty is still worth a chuckle.