Principles

See Also: Issues

Voting Principles

Here are some principles I use to guide my voting.

Study (As much as possible.)
- Read the analysis, candidate statements, arguments, rebuttals, whatever you can to get a clear picture of the candidate/bill.
For independent candidates, and sometimes measures, review the endorsements.
- Unions are generally indicative of liberals, whether they are unions of teachers, or police, or whatever.
- Police organizations are not indications of conservatism. There are hundreds of them and they come in all political flavors.
When in doubt, vote no. (For proposition/measures.)
- Stability is important, and I generally don't think it wise to implement changes with ambiguous effects.
- There is good reason to be suspicious that ambiguous and obtuse legislation is hiding something sinister.
Assume members of liberal parties (e.g. Democratic Party, Green Party, Peace and Freedom Party) are liberal.
- These are platforms no competent conservative would ever support.
- The jury's still out regarding the Libertarian Party.
- The Republican Party and American Independent Party have good conservative platforms.
When one can vote for multiple candidates in a listing and one can not find a good option for all the votes allowed, only vote for the good options that can be found.
- Giving votes to undesirable candidates in such circumstances dilutes the power of your vote.