Project Launched!

Time spent: 15 minutes

To more fully engage in the voter experience I intend to access the respective city, county and government websites addressing upcoming candidates, referenda and initiatives being filed in 2010.

Today I accessed the State of Washington website and found this page to be a good starting point:

http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/Default.aspx


This site provided links to additional information, such as a handbook for filing Initiatives and Referenda and Statewide standards of what constitutes a ‘valid’ vote (recall the infamous Gore vs. Bush Supreme Court Ruling regarding the Florida state Presidential ballots in 2000.)

Navigating through this site, I immediately began to raise my level of consciousness regarding the birth of legislative issues. For example, I listen to the news nearly every day and inevitably there is some reference to legislation either being proposed to the voters or being considered by our appointed State legislature. What failed to resonate until now was how early the process begins. Currently, the last day to file an initiative to the 2011 Legislature is March 10, 2010. This means that most initiatives on the table for consideration in 2010 were submitted almost a year ago.

Perhaps the most valuable and friendly feature of this page was the Voter’s Corner. Here, I could select an icon called My Vote and when I enter my name and date of birth, another page pops up with my Voter’s Pamphlet, Voting History and Elected Officials. I decided this was a great starting point because from here I will be able to identify upcoming initiatives and candidates for consideration this year. Here’s how it works:

When I expand the section called Voter’s Pamphlet, it will let me know whether there is an election in my area at this time. It also offers a link to the election calendar, which will identify election dates scheduled for this year. (You can also view the elections calendar by linking to http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/calendar_list.aspx?y=2010)


On the same page, I expanded the section called Elected Officials. Here I can identify the federal and state officials supporting my community. This is where I identified which Congressional District and Legislative District I belonged to, as well as the judicial seats presiding over the State and County Court.

That may be it for today. It's Sunday and I have to work for about an hour and a half, after which I intend to allow my brain to relax.