Monday, February 9, 2015

Poll Dancing - The Election Begins Today

Early voting starts Monday at 9am and runs through Saturday, February 21st.  Polls are open 9am-5pm Monday through Saturday, with a few Sunday options as well.  City offices -- mayor, city clerk, city treasurer, and all 50 aldermen -- are on the ballot, as well as several advisory referenda.

Why early vote?  
  • It's where your voice is the loudest. In the last aldermanic election, one of Uptown's aldermen won with 50.79% of the vote. Ameya Pawar was only 133 votes away from a runoff election.
  • You get to choose when and where you vote. There's one polling place per ward, as well as one at the Board of Elections at 69 West Washington.  You can early vote at any of them. You're not tied down to a single polling place, like you are on Election Day.  The entire list is here.
  • Better voting equipment. By law, on Election Day, each precinct must have one electronic voting station. Guess where all those easy-to-use voting machines hang out before Election Day?  At the early voting locations.
  • No Election Day surprises, like, say, a blizzard no one knew was coming until we were in the middle of it.
  • It will stop most of the phone calls.  Most -- not all -- campaigns get daily lists of the early voters. They're interested in reaching potential voters, not people who have already voted. A few phone calls may slip through, but most of them will stop once you're on the already-voted list.
A few things to remember about early voting:
  • You'll need to bring and show a government ID, unlike Election Day.
  • Early voting locations in and around Uptown: Truman College, 1145 West Wilson (46th Ward), Welles Park, 2333 West Sunnyside (47th Ward), and Edgewater Public Library, 6000 North Broadway (48th Ward).  But it bears repeating -- you can vote at any early voting location, anywhere in the city.
  • Want to see a sample ballot?  Go here, plug in your personal information, and it will show you a sample ballot for your precinct, including the advisory referenda.
So, choose a day you've got some free time, get out there to a polling place, and do your civic duty, you sexy ballot-casting voter, you.

No comments:

Post a Comment