Find out who will be on your ballot before the election

[eveninparadise.livejournal.com]

Massachusetts voting districts confuse me (different zoning rules for practically every elected office!), but this site helped a lot:

http://www.imagineelection.com/

If you fill out your address in the top left corner, the site will show you what your ballot will look like November 4. In my case, most of my elected officials are running unopposed, but that varies based on where you live.

As a side note, I now see why it's so important to vote in primaries here - most of our elected officials are democrats, so the race is often over before election day.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Thanks! I try to pay attention to elections, but I somehow didn't know that Bob Underwood is running for U.S. Senate as a Libertarian (against John Kerry and Republican Jeffrey Beatty)

I'm curious what the story is behind this: "He is a member of the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, the Methodist Church and a former member of the United Auto Workers"

Except for US President and US Senate, I don't think there's a contested race for any office anywhere in Somerville, Medford, or Cambridge.

[eveninparadise.livejournal.com]

My U.S. Representative (Ed Markey) is up for reelection, and he's running against Republican John Cunningham.

Not sure what the story is on Bob Underwood's affiliations. Maybe he left off Jews for Jesus from the list?

[ron_newman]

Whoops, not sure how I missed that one.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[turil.livejournal.com]

Are there really only two official candidate for president on the ballot this year? If so, that sucks.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

On the bottom it says "We can't guarantee the accuracy of this information", so I suspect the usual list of reasonable alternatives and total crackpots will be there.

[ron_newman]

Oh my, that is definitely not correct! You should complain to the webmaster, summer@imagineelection.com . The actual list can be found here:

ELECTORS OF PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT
STATEWIDE

BALDWIN and CASTLE, Constitution
BARR and ROOT, Libertarian
McCAIN and PALIN, Republican
McKINNEY and CLEMENTE, Green-Rainbow
NADER and GONZALEZ, Independent
OBAMA and BIDEN, Democratic

[turil.livejournal.com]

Thanks Ron. That's much more like it!

[eveninparadise.livejournal.com]

I think it's true. The ACLU filed suit in August about third-party election rights in Massachusetts. The big issue was the Libertarian party. The guy who made it onto the Mass ballot (Phillies) wanted his name to be swapped with Robert Barr's because Barr ended up being the final choice of the Libertarian party. Without new signatures, it won't be allowed. I'm not sure what happened with the Green Party, or others.

http://lastfreevoice.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/phillies-wants-off-massachusetts-ballot/

[eveninparadise.livejournal.com]

I missed the update! Looks like the ACLU won:

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/judge_orders_mass_to_put_liber.html?category=Politics

[ron_newman]

See the official list I posted above.

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

Thank you

[cos]

Massachusetts has an official web site that shows you what's on your ballot that is pretty much guaranteed to be complete because it's administered by the same department (Secretary of the Commonwealth) that determines who qualified for the ballot. It's at WhereDoIVoteMA.com.

[ron_newman]

But until today, it didn't have sample ballots for the November election. They just now added that.

[cos]

I'm almost sure I saw those there last week, but maybe I'm misremembering.

[eveninparadise.livejournal.com]

That's so funny! I went to that page before and never noticed the ballot link, only saw my current elected officials. (Poor Web design, or am I just oblivious?) Thanks for the heads up.

[cos]

They add the ballot a few weeks before each election, so maybe it wasn't there yet when you looked?

[eveninparadise.livejournal.com]

Quite possible. I've been stressing about finding the info for a while now. I hate waiting in line to vote, only to realize I don't know half the names on the ballot.

[squonk.livejournal.com]

Excellent, thanks!