#paelection

Yes, your vote is your voice.

WAIT

Your VOTES are your voice. It’s an election year and I know it SEEMS like it’s only for the President of the United States but actually, look at all the votes you have to cast in Pennsylvania on Tuesday!

One of PA’s two seats in the U.S. Senate;

All 18 PA seats in the U.S. House of Representatives;

The entire PA House of Representatives (203 seats);

Half of the 50 seats in the PA Senate (Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 in Philadelphia); and

The state’s three row offices: Attorney General, Auditor General and Treasurer.

First of all, I got most of my info from Committee of Seventy which was super helpful! I recommend it to find out about your own district’s elections.

If you don’t know your District, look it up here really quick.

I did my research on the Democratic candidates for my own votes, and I’ll share them with you in case you also live in West Philly and agree with lots of my desires for the world. Like if you think humans including those who aren’t straight white men should be listened to and cared for in a world that’s hurting from gun violence, a broken education system, racism, unjust distribution of wealth, and a polluted and warming climate-- to name a few-- then check out who I’m voting for.

Senator

This one is the most important.

Toomey is up for re-election. I know from personal experience with his staff (who have been wonderful to work with despite our differences), and from his voting record, that Toomey is not interested in addressing climate change anytime soon. Basically if you’re liberal at all, please make sure you vote for a democrat for Senate on Tuesday.

The Democratic candidates are Katie McGinty, Joe Sestak, and John Fetterman. Honestly I’ll take any of them but Fetterman gets my vote-- he’s pretty much the Bernie Sanders of Pennsylvania, and he rules.  (Follow him on social media!)

House Rep (District 2 - 19143)

Chaka Fattah has been in office for 20 years and he’s doing some great stuff (well, you know, except for the whole getting indicted for corruption thing). But otherwise he’s good on climate and prison reform, two things I’ve lobbied on, among other important issues. Not sure what will happen with him.

The other Democratic candidates are Dwight Evans, Brian Anthony Gordon, and Daniel Muroff. I actually like all of them, they’re pretty good on most issues. I would say Dwight Evans seems to be the most Philadelphia-focused, and Dan Muroff has the best website (that’s a thing! Transparency is so important). Muroff is also super against gun violence, he’s got Black Lives Matter right on his issues page, and he’s good on environment. I’ll probably vote for him.

State House & Senate

Jim Roebuck is running unopposed. He seems pretty cool. There’s no election for State Senate for me this year, but in case you’re wondering it’s Anthony Williams.

However, if I lived in the 177th district (Bridesburg, Northwood Mayfair and parts of Port Richmond, Fishtown, Lawncrest and Tacony) I would DEFINITELY vote for Joe Hohenstein!

Attorney General

Dems running are John Morganelli, Josh Shapiro, and Stephen Zappala. I like Shapiro the best, but I couldn’t actually get to Zappala’s website because it’s broken. Whoops.

Anyway Shapiro seems to support women and LGBT folks, and also wants to crack down on environmental crimes/doesn’t like fracking, and he’s endorsed by Obama so I’ll take him!

Auditor General

I actually just found out what this is. It’s the “fiscal watchdog” (Ha!).

Our current Auditor General is Eugene DePasquale, who I’ve never heard of, and he says “The most important issue for Pennsylvania is job creation“, but also says some of those are green jobs, and he says some other decent things about environment. He’s just running against a Republican who’s pro-life according to his official Facebook page (what does that have to do with auditing?) and also has a broken website.

Treasurer

Joe Torsella is the Democrat running and he has the word Transparency all over his website and I’m into that.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, I’m voting for Bernie!

That’s who I’m voting for. Go Vote! Even if you vote against all the people I just named, do your research and just vote, because otherwise what’s the point of living here.