#state elections

It’s primary season in a midterm year, and that means this is your best chance to stop the bleeding and put a check on the White House. Voting for the midterms will be happening as early as the next few weeks for some extremely consequential positions with no electoral college to fuck it up.

In my state alone, we are voting on who will be our:

Governor (and Lt. Governor)

Congressional Representative

Senator

Secretary of State

State Auditor

Attorney General

County Sheriff

District Court Judge

These people have the power to either help this administration’s agenda or stop it in its tracks. They handle elections, criminal justice, natural disaster response, and so much more. Some places may have people running for school board as well, and if you don’t want book bans to continue, then you need to vote on that.

Early voting for the primaries may start as soon as June (as in, this month) and July. And then the general will happen in November.

Check that you’re registered, what the dates are, check that you either know where your polling place is or can request an absentee ballot early enough, and research who’s on your ballot.

I know voting might feel very pointless right now, but every Democrat we can get in office is another roadblock, another obstacle, something slowly down the regime from consolidating total control. Republicans' focus on consolidating power down ballot is part of why they've been able to dominate America even with minority support, as they can gerrymander states, obstruct in Congress, etc. We need to do much better here.

...the West Bengal elections this week. Millions of people in the Indian state of West Bengal have been stripped of their vote ahead of a critical state election this week, after a controversial electoral revision described by critics as a “bloodless political genocide” and mass disenfranchisement of minorities. In West Bengal, a total of 9.1 million names have been deleted from the register, more than 10% of the electorate. While many were dead or duplicates, about 2.7 million people have challenged their expulsions, but still been removed. The process of revising the electoral roll, known as Special Intensive Revision (SIR), has been taking place in states and territories across India, justified by the Narendra Modi government as a way to stop “infiltrators” – a pejorative term largely referring to illegal Muslim Bangladeshi immigrants – from voting. The divisive exercise by the central Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government to “purify” the electoral roll – in the words of home minister Amit Shah – has led to a chorus of fury. The drawing up of a new electoral register has been carried out at unprecedented speed, ahead of the West Bengal state elections which will begin on Thursday. The BJP, led by prime minister Modi, is hoping to seize power from Trinamool Congress (TMC), the party that has ruled the state for 15 years. “What has happened in Bengal is a constitutional crime. It is a crime against the people of India, against the people of Bengal,” said Sagarika Ghose, an MP for TMC.

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The Wisconsin judge who Elon Musk spent $30 million unsuccessfully trying to defeat last spring has taken her place on the state Supreme Court.

Don't say that I never post good news! 😊

Justice Susan Crawford joined the Wisconsin Supreme Court late Friday afternoon, months after she won election to the seat in what amounted to the most expensive judicial race in American history. In remarks at an investiture ceremony at the Wisconsin State Capitol, Crawford pledged to uphold the state and federal constitutions and to rule with “dedication, insight and humanity.” 

The good part...

Crawford, formerly a Dane County judge, was elected to her first 10-year term on the bench in April. Her election likely cemented liberals’ majority on the high court for years to come, as the next scheduled elections involve seats now held by conservative justices. Crawford’s victory came after a campaign cycle that cost at least $115 million and attracted national attention and donations. At stake was the ideological balance of the court. Liberals supported Crawford to maintain their majority, won in 2023 during the then-record breaking election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz.  Crawford’s 10-point victory over Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, who was backed by conservatives, means liberals will likely hold that majority through at least 2028, with cases over issues like labor law and congressional redistricting under scrutiny. 

This means that gerrymandering by the current GOP legislature is dead.

In general, we all need to pay more attention to state government and state elections. The people you elect to statewide office and to the legislature have a direct influence on how Congressional districts are drawn in the state. That's just one of many reasons never to miss a state election.

On my way to go vote after work i passed through a whole bunch of students in Young Dems and DSA flyering and letting people know where to vote, they'd given out all their pizza, it was awesome, I got a "Love Wins" temporary tattoo from the ones tabling for reproductive freedom. It was a goddamn street party. There was like one sad little table for the Republicans lol

As I was finishing up my ballot the guy supervising the machine and handing out stickers announced to the other precinct volunteers across the room, "We broke 700!!" which for that location is a break-out-the-champagne turnout. He was so excited when I told him about the students caucusing, and told me "There were so many students here registering to vote for the first time this year! They showed up in big groups!"

Some of this $#@% can only be fixed/mitigated on the federal level, but most of the laws that Americans live under day to day are state laws. Who passes 'em? State legislatures.

All this "third term for Trump" talk might be a distraction but you know who'd have to approve the Constitutional amendment to make it happen? The states, as in state legislatures. Vote for state legislature.

Ballotpedia.org

Vote411.org

Google kind of sucks but it doesn't suck too much to be any use