Just got my mail in ballot but I need help with something....

[Joe the Liberal]

I'm a first time voter and like I said I just got my ballot yesterday but on the ballot I have to vote to either retain or not retain judges. I have a pretty good idea on what I'm going to vote for on the rest of the ballot but I have no clue what to vote for for all these judges being that I don't know a thing about them. Does it matter on how I vote for the judges on the ballot? Aside from that I heard that if you vote for all democrat you have to pick a different choice other than democrat for your presidential pick, is this true? I'm in Colorado by the way. Help me DU!

[BuyingThyme]

1. Not true. You can vote for whomever you want.

[applexcore]

2. See if your local Democrats have a website for your county

They usually have "cheat sheets" for the judges. You can call their HQ or possibly even your local Obama HQ. Just tell them your district and ask if they have any preferred choices for judges.


EDIT: You can vote for Democrat for EVERY partisan office.

[EstimatedProphet]

3. You can vote the straight ticket and Obama for president

You may have to mark both, but if you do it will be in the instructions.

[gkhouston]

4. Try this...

it's a link to a webpage for the League of Women Voters for the state of Colorado (or should be). If your county's listed, there may well be a PDF file of a voter's guide, which will give you brief info on those mystery judges.


http://www.lwv.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Find_a_Local_League&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=56&ContentID=5096

[Supply Side Jesus]

5. from Colorado

I voted to retain the Supreme Court justices, mainly because they held off redistricting in 2004.
As for your local and district judges, check w/ local party, even though I doubt they will have an opinion. You can always search for their political donations, then decide based on that.

[abumbyanyothername]

6. Ballot help

1) Don't vote straight ticket. Check each democrat individually if those are your choices. You can vote democratic for every single office if you choose.

2) It is not mandatory to vote on judges. I am an attorney and I often don't vote when I know nothing about the candidates. Others times, I vote for whichever candidate is not a former prosecutor. But maybe that is just the '60s radical wannabe in me (I was 12 years old in 1969 and so wanted to be a part of the Summer of Love).

edited to fix typo

[Jackpine Radical]

9. I think the Summer of Love was 1966.

And I agree with you about prosecutors & judges. I'm not a lawyer, though. I'm a psychologist with a criminal forensic practice, and tend to be hired by the defense.

[rvablue]

7. WTH?? "I heard that if you vote for all democrat you have to pick a different choice...

...other than Democrat.

Who told you this?
Where did you hear this?
Please try to remember and then contact your local Democratic Party headquarters and the Obama campaign.
If some one or some entity is disseminating this information it could be construed as voter tampering.
I've never heard something so ridiculous in my life, so I hope you can remember the source of the information and take some action so that it doesn't affect anyone else.

THOSE DIRTY TRICKSTER RETHUGS WILL STOP AT NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!

[peace13]

10. It has to do with some machines having a button to select a straight party selection.

A bug was found (don't remember what state) that would not select President in this scenario. I think they corrected the problem.

[rvablue]

12. I understand that but there are no switches on mail-in ballots. n/t

[Joe the Liberal]

8. Sounds good thanks for the help.

:) :yourock:

[progressivebydesign]

11. Important points for voters... be sure to SIGN your ballot, if it asks you to.

Be sure that your state does not require you to make a separate mark for President, if you vote the straight ticket. I was just reading that North Carolina has their ballots designed so that you have to choose the President Separately from the straight ticket, or else it will not count. Be sure you mark everything you need to.

Oh... and congrats on your vote!!!