#state election

First State Election in Detroit, Michigan, 1837

Artist: Thomas Mickell Burnham (American, 1818-1866)

Date: c. 1837

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI, United States

Description

It's vital you vote in the April 1st Wisconsin State Supreme Court election. Elon Musk is literally bribing people to vote for Brad Schimel in his bid to destroy democracy in Wisconsin. Vote for Susan Crawford if you want show the Elongated Muskrat the middle finger, and if you care about having fair and free elections.

Early in person voting closes today (March 30), but you can also vote on Tuesday, April 1st, of course.

...anxieties about the state’s struggling auto industry. Germany’s center-left Greens scraped out a narrow victory in a key vote in Baden-Württemberg on Sunday, according to preliminary results, marking a stinging defeat for the parties in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative -led coalition government. The outcome in Germany’s third-most populous state — an industrial powerhouse home to Mercedes-Benz and Porsche — deals a major blow to Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which had maintained a significant lead in the polls until the final days of the campaign, as well as to his center-left coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) — which appears set to suffer its worst result in a federal or state election in its long history. But the Greens, under former federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, surged in polling ahead of the vote, ultimately coming first with 30.3 percent according to a preliminary count. The CDU came second with 29.7 percent — an increase from the last election, but not enough to overtake the Greens. “What a tremendous comeback!” Özdemir told his cheering supporters after the polls closed. The Greens’ victory was due largely to the centrist Özdemir’s popularity with voters, surveys indicated. The vote in Baden-Württemberg is the first of five state elections and numerous local contests to take place across the country over the next several months in what Germans are calling a Superwahljahr (“super election year”). The votes are widely seen as a key test of the national mood as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party seeks to overtake Merz’s conservatives and secure big victories in two eastern states in September.

OUR HOUSE OF DELEGATES AND STATE SENATE ARE UP FOR ELECTION PLUS OTHER LOCAL POSITIONS

ITS SUPER IMPORTANT TO VOTE IN YOUR LOCAL AND STATE ELECTIONS BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE BIGGEST DIRECT IMPACT ON YOU!

USE THIS WEBSITE TO CHECK WHOS ON YOUR BALLOT

(THERES ALSO A LOT OF OTHER COOL INFORMATION REGARDING VIRGINIA POLITICS)

Here we are, two days from polling day in New South Wales. In my teenage years I watched NSW politics with a degree of disbelief and amusement from north of the border; since 2007 I have watched with even greater amounts of the same from south of the Murray. But now I am in New South Wales, about to vote in the state that gives us greater political dysfunction than any other. Say what you will about Queensland under Bjelke-Petersen, or South Australia and the Playmander, or Victoria pre-1955, no state has been more of a mess politically this current century than NSW. It does not matter what side of politics, it is here that you will find the most dysfunctional state branch of any party.

Anyway. On Saturday you will get two ballots. The smaller one is for the Legislative Assembly, where you elect one of 93 local representatives to the lower house of parliament. This is where the government is formed. You will also receive a large ballot for the Legislative Council, which is the house of review. The Legislative Council is elected by the state at large; 21 of its 42 seats come up for election every four years. This has two important implications: whoever you vote for gets eight years on the Legislative Council, and they only need to attain 4.55% of the statewide vote to get there.

To help you out, I have reviewed all the minor parties. I figure that if you are reading this blog you probably already have a decent idea about the Liberals, Nationals, the ALP, and the Greens. I have reviewed every minor party, the grouped independents, and the ungrouped independents, as well as the one independent standing in the lower house Division of Wollongong. If you are in a different lower house electorate and have an independent standing, I encourage you to Google them before casting your vote.

Without further ado, here are the parties I have reviewed. In brackets is an indication of their general ideology.

Advance Australia Party (anti-Berejiklian)

Animal Justice Party (animal rights)

Australian Conservatives (Christian fundamentalists)

Christian Democratic Party (Christian fundamentalists)

Flux NSW (direct e-democracy)

Keep Sydney Open (civil libertarian)

Liberal Democratic Party (right-libertarian)

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (dysfunctional racists)

Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers (gun nuts who, in the wake of Christchurch, can get absolutely and completely fucked)

Socialist Alliance (socialism)

Sustainable Australia (anti-immigration)

The Small Business Party (neo-liberal minimal taxation)

Voluntary Euthanasia Party (single issue / assisted dying)

Group G aka Seniors United Party of Australia (single issue / seniors’ rights)

Group H aka Monaghan and Monaghan (right-leaning grumpy Boomers)

Group L aka Jeremy Buckingham and Friends (Claytons Greens, i.e. the greens you have when you are not having The Greens)

Group S aka James Jansson’s “Team for NSW” (progressive futurists)

There are also eight ungrouped independents contesting the Legislative Council: part one and part two (the latter also reviewing the one independent running for Wollongong in the Legislative Assembly), plus some more general thoughts.

If you are curious about my past reviews, please check out the indexes for the 2013 federal election, 2014 Victorian election, 2016 federal election, and the 2018 Victorian election.

Thanks to those of you who have left feedback. It has been most appreciated. Enjoy your democracy sausages and have fun casting your vote this Saturday!