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Virginians, Vote for your Lives (Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023)
That’s right, Tuesday, November 7, 2023, is a big election in Virginia. Neither Governor nor national seats are up, but the all-important state legislature is a toss-up in both houses. Democrats hold a slight majority in the upper house, and Republicans hold a slight majority in the lower house.
For example, before we made such great gains in 2021, Democrats were able to kill private transfers of firearms by requiring an on-the-spot background check. For a private transfer! Might as well register yourself in the database right there, and stand in line to have your guns tooken. I had looked this up in 2020, but had not realized until several weeks ago that in 2021, Democrats changed the law to what it is now.
Here’s a look at the offices up for most locales in VA:
STATEWIDE:
- Senate of Virginia (40) (4-year term)
- House of Delegates (100) (2-year term)
- Soil and Water Directors (4-year term)
Counties:
8-year term: (The next eight years!)
- Clerk of Court
4-year terms:
- Commonwealth’s Attorney
- Sheriff
- Commissioner of Revenue
- Treasurer
- County Board (Arlington County ONLY)
- Boards of Supervisors (95 counties)
- School Boards (91 counties)
City Council (3 cities)
City School Board (3 cities)
Town Council (15 Towns)
City or Town Mayor
- Town Recorder (Clerk)
I know people get tired of “everything is on the line” pep rallies, but it’s nearly always true. Virginia is trending badly, but we had a remarkable respite in the election of Governor Youngkin (and others) and the liberation of the lower house in 2021. Now we have an opportunity to reclaim the upper house, which will transform Governor Youngkin’s term from defense to offense.
I won’t belabor the point, as we’re beyond the time when analysis is useful. Just get out and vote straight R. Higher-level offices are marked D or R right on the ballot, but this is not true of all offices. Do some local research to find out who smells right on the school boards and such. Those are not “partisan” offices, but people are people, and every office matters.
Large victories do not come from outer space, but instead are built on the backs of small victories. The important statewide elections of next year can hinge on local elections of this year, and so forth.
That’s worth shifting for.
Published in General
Yes, this is a significant election for us here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Things had been getting rougher for a bit with the anti-freedom and responsibility mindset gaining greater and greater purchase for a while and then going full bore crazy after the 2019 elections in which the Republican Party of Virginia left nearly 25% of all legislative races with no Big R option. While we made some headway in the 2021 election, there was nothing we could do about the mixture in the Virginia Senate until this year. If we can flip the Virginia Senate and keep the Virginia House of Delegates on the Big R side, we might be able to undo some of the fast-paced crazy-land changes of the 2020-2021 legislative sessions. May. Don’t hold your breath though, but one can hope.
Since it’s non-partisan they speak using dog whistles. Do your best immitation of a dog.
In our county, the local Republicans came out with specific endorsements for all the “non-affiliated” (school boards, etc.).
That’s a useful public service.
If any candidate talks in favor of schools imparting more knowledge, information, or facts, you’ve probably got one to vote for. Most of the lefty types wouldn’t agree to that even under extreme physical torture. Most of the others won’t agree to it, either, unless you hang them by their thumbs. But on rare occasion, a candidate will volunteer that he or she is in favor. Those are worth having.
Already voted. I hate early voting but sometimes you have to play by ‘their’ rules to win. Keeping fingers crossed that the recent fentanyl overdoses in schools that the no one informed the parents about will sway some people. Fingers crossed.
We despise it too but did it a couple weeks ago because we were a few blocks from the early voting center and decided just to get it done then. Of course, the usual tables were set up in the parking lot by both parties trying to give you sample ballots, etc. I always want to tell them “If I came to vote and didn’t know who to vote for until I got here, I should be disqualified immediately.”
Done and done.
I will say that the VA ballot is complicated this year w/ school boards, etc. I didn’t take a sample ballot but had a cheat sheet on me in case I forgot a few of the names. I’m in the Town of Vienna so we also had the Vienna council to vote for also. I appreciate those Republican workers, especially in northern VA, as this area is so blue. Witness the tirade by some wacko Arlington voter in another post. Apparently there was a precinct in Fairfax County where all the Republican signs were torn down. But remember we’re the extreme MAGA people.
Just voted. There were some areas on the sample ballot which were blank, so I went online and checked the Dems and did the opposite. Some subsequent research shows that using this rule, I just voted for a Marxist somewhere, but the Dem sample ballots marked for the other one (of only two, a Dem and a proper Marxist) mean that it won’t hurt anything.
In the absence of better info, I’ll stick by it as a general rule.
Best of course is to know all this stuff going in, but I couldn’t even get my head around what all the races were.
I had swung by the R HQ (they were closed) and took pictures of their signs in case there was no sample ballot. but there was a sample ballot.
Why would any political organization’s office be closed on election day?
That wasn’t today.