how to track your vote in Washington

There's a lot of attention being paid to tracking that your vote counts this year. In most states, you vote in person. In Washington, you probably vote by mail. (37 of Washington's 39 counties vote by mail; see the Secretary of State's info page for more information.) We like paper, and here's how to keep a paper trail if you desire:

1.Vote permanent absentee, if you live in King or Pierce counties, the only counties where vote-by-mail is not the default.. This is a moot point after this election as vote-by-mail is going to be the only way to vote in Washington after this election anyways. As it stands, this is an option in every county.

2.Vote. I don't care about much, but please don't vote for Dino Rossi and his Neanderthal queer-hating racist anti-transit anti-poor agenda. Thanks!

3.Go to your surly neighborhood copy shop and make a copy of your ballot. Copy the outer envelope with its randomly generated barcode.

4.Return the ballot via certified mail if you don't trust The Man, or regular mail if you do. You can also drop off your ballot at Drop-Off points in most counties; see your local Elections office; for example in King County, http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/ballotdropboxes.aspx Or, you can just march your butt into the Elections office and hand it over. I know people who've done this.

5.There's a query function for checking that the randomly assigned barcode has been scanned in and the ballot counted. Once you see that, you're all set.

You can videotape the whole thing if you want (and post it on youtube!) but unlike in many states, there's a built-in validation process. PBS has been encouraging people to Video Your Vote and this is a great idea in states without a system for validation. If you're curious about the legality of it all, see the Citizen Media Law Project for some guidelines.

must be election season in washington again

1)A vehemently anti-queer, anti-immigrant forced-birther (and self-professed bad tipper) actually has a chance in the race for Governor. Amongst his many wonderful ideas are defunding Washington's Food Stamp program (ie no state contribution), 20-40% tuition increases at public universities and colleges (which Dino has called "freeloading"), ending emergency contraception upon request at pharmacist discretion, lowering the minimum wage even though our inflation is well behind that of the rest of the country, and, of course, shutting down the light rail systems that we've paid for, the primary one of which has not even commenced service yet and the other one in Tacoma, which is fare-free yet has 90% service cost recovery because the Feds pay for it.

Yes, Christine Gregoire sucks, but this dude is just Ellen Craswell in a suit and with a hairpiece; remember that by voting for Rossi, you're telling every queer person you know that you don't think we deserve basic human rights. If you're voting for Rossi, you're voting against reproductive rights. The fact that the man has some good ideas does not divorce him from his extreme right-wing social stances without his having any plan for reducing spending other than feel-good aphorisms. If you hate Gregoire so much, vote for someone else...just not this queer-hating jerk. Oh, and unlike Ellen Craswell, he changes his tune depending on who he's talking to. If you think he doesn't want to overturn the queer human rights bill, where were you when he addressed the Antioch Bible Church? I don't think you were sitting next to me hearing it, mmkay?

*=fun fact: the Federal Government actually has been funding light rail better under the Bush-43 Administration, especially for shorter systems like Kenosha's, Buffalo's, and Tacoma's. that said it's still way behind other forms of transportation, but i think someone at the Urban Mass Transit Administration is less dumb than you think.

2)Eyman has an initiative on the ballot. Trouble is, it's half good and half bad. It is a typical Eyman kill transit initiative which goes too far, but it has some ideas people in Olympia need to listen to, like using excess toll revenue and red light camera fines to pay for a Congestion Relief account, which Gregoire has been half-heartedly funding with mixed success. The bad parts are the ones that will get the State of Washington fined by the Feds: you know, opening the HOV lanes to all vehicles within hours that the funding was provided saying that they couldn't, and, oh yeah, making sure as little money as possible goes to transit. Kemper Freeman, funder of Eyman's wallet...er, initiatives, and notorious open racist, once noted that transit will fill places like Bellevue with minorities. I dunno about you but last time i looked around in Bellevue, there were a lot of

(That said, the Congestion Relief account, if not a blind grab at defunding any and all transit, is a good idea. I hope Timmy changes it around to pass muster, and removes the costly fine-laden HOV killing, because, really, red light cameras and excess tolls SHOULD be going back to improving roads...tolls really can't be funding anything else under the law already, and they are.)

3)There's an initiative on the ballot that is mostly attracting out-of-state funding and attention: I-1000, the Death With Dignity initiative. Both sides are running guilt-laden tug-at-the-heartstring ads, both sides are playing on disability guilt, and both sides really seem to fail at making cogent public-facing points. I don't even get the opposition because like it or not a doctor can already give you all the drugs you need to kill yourself anyways. Hell, between Fred Meyer and the Liquor Control Board, you can do it yourself without a prescription. Shielding doctors from liability is already something we give broad rein to, so...yeah. It's symbolic. And i do support voting yes, for what it's worth.

4)Washington isn't polling as a sure thing for the Obama-Biden camp even though historically you know damn well that most modern Democrats have easily won. I think vote-by-mail confuses pollsters, and i think they forget that there's a distinct portion of Northwesterners who don't answer weird phone numbers and thus never get polled.

That's the end of that. In case you're curious what this is doing here, all these things do affect working-class queers, you know, people like me. Do you really want to imagine this state going back to how it was before equal rights for queers? You know, when you could get fired for being gay just because you worked in Bellevue? Yeah. Don't mess up, my beloved Evergreen State.

don't shoot bigfoot in Skamania County (Washington)

Skamania County is a beautiful little gem of a place in south-central Washington. It's long been a hotbed of sightings of various alleged Yeti, and if you've lived in the Pacific Northwest long enough you know someone who's seen Bigfoot. I will leave the question of Bigfoot's existence, and all the current controversy of those jokers in Georgia has made for some significant controversy about Bigfoot. See, the County of Skamania has outlawed hunting of the Great Hairy Apes, which should help people who post to Something Awful feel much safer there. Thus, submitted for your approval, County of Skamania Ordinance 1984-2:

COUNTY OF SKAMANIA ORDINANCE NO. 1984-2
PARTIALLY REPEALING AND AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. 1969-01

WHEREAS, evidence continues to accumulate indicating the Possible existence within Skamania County a nocturnal primate mammal Variously described as an ape-like creature or sub-species of Homo Sapiens; and
WHEREAS, legend, purported recent findings, and spoor support This possibility; and WHEREAS, this creature is generally and commonly known as “Sasquatch”, “Yeti”, “Bigfoot”, or “Giant Hairy Ape”, all of which terms may be hereinafter be used interchangeably; and WHEREAS, publicity attendant upon such real or imagined findings And other evidence have resulted in an influx of scientific investigators as well as casual hunters, most of which are armed with lethal weapons; and
WHEREAS, the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county in regard to firearms and other deadly devices used to hunt the Yeti and poses a clear and present danger to the safty of the well-being persons living or traveling within the boundries of this county as well as to the Giant Hairy Apes themselves; and
WHEREAS, previous County Ordinance No. 1969-01 deemed the slaying of such creature to be a felony (punishable by 5 years in prison) and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that Board of County Commissioners; now, therefore BE IT HEREBY ORDAINED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF SKAMANIA COUNTY that a portion of Ordinance No. 1969-1, deeming the slaying of Bigfoot to be a felony punishable by 5 years in prison, is hereby repealed and in its stead the following sections are enacted: SECTION 1. Sasquatch Refuge. The Sasquatch, Yeti, Bigfoot, or Giant Hairy Ape are declared to be endangered species of Skamania County and there is hereby created a Sasquatch Refuge, the boundaries of which shall be co-extensive with the boundaries of Skamania County.

SECTION 2. Crime-Penalty. From and after the passage of this ordinance the premeditated, willful, or wanton slaying of Sasquatch shall be unlawful and shall be punishable as follows: (a) If the actor is found to be guilty of such a crime with malice aforethought, such act shall be deemed a Gross Misdemeanor. (b) If the act is found to be premeditated and willful or wanton but without malice aforethought, such act shall be deemed a Misdemeanor. (c) A gross misdemeanor slaying of Sasquatch shall be punishable by 1 year in the county jail and a $1,000.00 fine, or both. (d) The slaying of Sasquatch which is deemed a misdemeanor shall be punishable by a $500.00 fine and up to 6 months in the county jail, or both.

SECTION 3. Defense. In the prosecution and trail of any accused Sasquatch killer the fact that the actor is suffering from insane delusions, diminished capacity, or that the act was the product of a diseased mind, shall not be a defense. SECTION 4. Humaniod/Anthropoid. Should the Skamania County Coroner determine any victim/creature to have been humanoid the Prosecuting Attorney shall persue the case under existing laws pertaining to homicide. Should the coroner determine the victim to be an anthropoid (ape-like creature) the Prosecuting Attorney shall proceed under the terms of this ordinance.

BE IT FUTHER ORDAINED that the situation existing constitutes an emergency and such this ordinance shall become effective immediately upon its’ passage.

the first post of a blog...

is always some sort of awkward dipping of one's toe in the water, or an introduction. i'm going to aim for a combination of the two.

my blog doesn't have a mission statement. it's not Six Sigma certified. it's mostly about the intersections of gender, sex, sexual orientation, disability, and the law, but that's not all it's about. i can demistify pesky parking ordinances, and also sometimes i'll even talk about other things. right about now i'm thinking about beer and cheese. it's supposed to be varied. it's also my journal for public consumption so you might occasionally have to deal with me stumping for something.

so hi, i'm Gwen. or professionally, G. A. Cadogan, please. i'm in my early 30s, i'm a librarian and a paralegal and i'm headed to law school in fall 2009. i'm what people politely refer to as an "independent spirit." i'm queer and disabled and chances are this is why this is my area of legal interest, but i've always been a big believer in pulling for the downtrodden anyways. i tend to ride Uncle Ron's Limo and end up being one of those people who defends social progress in Seattle no matter how much it feels like it's a lost cause sometimes.