I received my “Official Primary Election Ballots” in the mail yesterday. Is this a great country or what? I like voting by mail. I’d like voting via the internet better. Voting by mail makes it easy to take some time and think about the choices. One piece of advice for the County Elections Office is that they should place an “I Voted” sticker in the envelopes with the ballots – just to add a dash of patriotism.

A couple of local legislative candidates (running against each other) were on the ball this election season as I received postcards urging me to vote for them. I know the process of getting these postcards out takes some coordination and some volunteers so I salute them for their hard work. It’s too bad one of you has to lose because either one if you would be better than the other party’s candidate.

The Process Should Be Changed:

I don’t like the law that I have to pick a party in the primary and only use their ballot. They need to change MCA 13-10-301 (2) which states, “At a primary election, the elector shall cast votes on only one of the party ballots…”

This year, there are contested races on both sides of the aisle. My Republican ballot has three contested primary races and my Democratic ballot has four contested primary races. Decisions, decisions! My bet is there are more Independent voters in Montana than Republicans and Democrats, so Independents should not be cornered into using one ballot in the primary.

A Short Story:

I remember when I was very young my dear old departed father (a lifetime union member) would mark the circle at the top of the column where the Democrats were listed. That was a choice you had in the state where we were living. By doing this, he voted for all the Democrats in all the races by coloring in one nice little circle. He never looked at the names on the Republican side of the ballot and I doubt he knew many people on the Democratic side, but his Union leadership told him the Democrats running for office were “for the working people” and since he was a working person, he voted for them.

They are “for the working people” was always his answer, even when I was well into my teenage years, and asked him why there were not any Republicans being endorsed by his Union. I will always have a soft spot for Unions as they helped my family tremendously over the years, especially when my father developed health problems and could not work very much.

A Solution:

I’d like to see Montana put all the candidates on the same ballot (save some trees) for the primary and vote for two people in each race. Then, the top two vote getters would run against each other in the general election. It wouldn’t matter to me if the top two vote getters were from the same party. Of course, it does matter to the official political parties that run our state, so don’t look for it to be changed by them in the near future.

Maybe some interested people can get this changed through the Initiative or Referendum process which would keep the party faithful out of it and let the voters decide.

Thanks to the Candidates:

I do salute those candidates who decided to run for elective office. You are part of what makes this country great. Good luck to each of you.