My Vote Counted

On Tuesday I voted in the Virginia election. There were only five (or was it six?) positions to vote for. I want to tell you all a little about my experience voting.

First off, I only voted for three of the positions: governor, attorney general, and house of delegates. I guess that last one is like the state legislature or something? I really have no idea.

Well, leading up to the election, I was unsure as to whether I should vote for the D or the R guys. On the one hand, D is pretty close to B, which is the first letter of my first name. But on the other hand, R *is* R, the first letter of my last name. In the end, I chose to go for the R guys, and for reasons other than the first-letter-of-my-name thing.

Bob McDonnell’s competitor had put signs up all over Fairfax saying something to the effect that Bob wanted to get rid of schools. I’m not a fan of public schools, so if Bob is against them, he’s my guy. I just don’t understand why his Creigh Deeds would have gone around paying for a positive advertising campaign for his election competitor.

I voted for Bob McDonnell, and he won by 6%. It’s a good thing I voted for him, because without my vote, he would have undoubtedly lost.

The race for attorney general had a similar story. The guy running against Cuccinelli (I don’t even remember his (or her) name) has been playing ads all over TV saying how Cuccinelli once said that he wouldn’t enforce laws he didn’t agree with. Wow! What a strong endorsement!

Seriously, these Democrats are horrible at the PR game. You guys are supposed to advertise negative qualities about your competitors (or at least talk up the good points of your own business). No wonder Republicans owned the elections last night.

Well anyway, I voted for Cuccinelli. This was a much closer race — Cuccinelli only won by 1%! My vote really counted here.

So in case you’re not keeping track, my vote has counted in two of two cases.

However, there is still the general assembly election. There was no R in this race, only a D. Having run as a third party candidate in the past, I can empathize with the lower-ranked parties. So I voted for the Green Party candidate, Anna Choi. I mean, I like the color green, so why not? And I can tell by her name that she’s Asian, and I like Asians.

Furthermore, her website claims she is a fiscal conservative… which in conjunction with being a Green means she probably just favors raising taxes really high to offset government spending. But that’s ok, because I learned recently from doing my macro homework that in a Keynesian world (which we live in), an equal increase in government spending and taxes results in a net positive effect on the economy. What’s not to love about this kind of fiscal conservatism?

Unfortunately, Anna lost her bid to serve us. It went to the D.

But I refuse to let one bad race prevent me from enjoying my democratic freedoms in this country and knowing that, at the very least, my vote counted in two of the three races.