Done voting

Yeesh.

I'm brain-fried. I just spent the last 3.5 hours voting. Here in Washington we get the ballot and voter pamphlet in the mail, then we can either mail it or take it to the polling place in person.

While I've been following politics pretty closely on the national level, and somewhat on the state level, I still needed to do more research before actually punching the card. Thank the deities for a fast Internet connection.

I found a couple of sites useful, notably Issues2000.org for a quick over-view of voting records.

It would've been a lot easier if I were a straight party-line kind of guy, but though I lean Libertarian, I firmly believe that the philosophical divisions within each party are less than that between them. I have to look at each individual's voting record, and what they stand for (as much as one can tell, and as much as they actually do stand for any clearly identifiable principle).

So on the state and local levels I ended up with some Democrats, some Republicans, and a bunch of Libertarians. I didn't really have to think much to vote Libertarian for things like attorney general and state auditor. It just seems obvious to me that I want a Libertarian for attorney general. It would sure be nice to swap a Libertarian for Ashcroft.