The polls are open until 7:30

Nearly 2000 people had voted at my precinct by the time I voted this afternoon and more people were coming.  The line went pretty quick though.  There were many candidate poll workers and I saw someone videotaping at one point.

 

Josh Parker heard about my posting and contacted me, so I looked over his website and questionnaire responses again and decided to vote for him after all.  I somewhat like Ellen Reckhow and Becky Heron's decisions on zoning requests and they are definitely aware of concerns in my section of Durham, so I voted for them.  I'm not sure about Michael Page, especially on suburban development, but I think he was critical of the panhandling ordinance and did not argue for the library meeting room fees, so I voted for him also.  Don Moffitt got my vote because I think he would be careful about development and other issues. Brenda Howerton is probably a good choice too, but we can only vote for five county commissioners. 

 

The Durham People's Alliance and the Independent have endorsed Richard Moore for governor, but I don't trust him, and Bev Perdue isn't much different, so I abstained. 

Jim Neal is the most progressive candidate for the US Senate and Hampton Dellinger seems to be the most progressive candidate for lieutenant governor, so I voted for them.

 

I looked at endorsements and candidate websites and decided to follow the People's Alliance and the Independent on the Council of State races, so I voted for Beth Wood for Auditor, Wayne Goodwin for Commissioner of Insurance, Mary Fant Donnan for Commissioner of Labor, for her progressive positions, though I would like to see a progressive Commissioner who has a rank and file working class background, Eddie Davis for Superintendent of Public Instruction (though I voted for June Atkinson last time), and Janet Cowell for Treasurer. 

 

I decided to vote for Mitchell Garrell for District Attorney, though there is not a stark difference in policy between him and Tracey Cline that I can see. 

 

I don't know a lot about the candidates for Court of Appeals, but the Independent has a good argument for incumbent James Wynn and Kristin Ruth, and the PA endorsed them, so I went that way. 

 

For the School Board At-large seat both Leigh Bordley and Nancy Cox seem good, but I decided to vote for Leigh Bordley, though it might be good to have a teacher on the Board.

 

Now the question is whether the results will be reported properly (and of course who won).  I am most worried that votes for Mike Gravel for president will not be mentioned, just as the media has for the most part ignored his candidacy since the beginning and especially for the past few months.  Sorry if you are a supporter, but for my part I'm sick of hearing about how "progressive" Obama and Clinton allegedly are.             

 

Now that I have voted in the primary, I plan to register as independent this summer.  I'm only formally a Democrat and have not participated in any Democratic Party meetings other than votes and that Israel-Palestine forum in 2006.  The statements I heard on a documentary on Nader on PBS a few months ago (it might have been POV) and their treatment of Representative Dennis Kucinich disgust me, so I will make sure their rolls have one less person.