Blog Lafayette

I recently wrote a blog on how it is our responsibility to know how we are going to vote on our candidates and on our ballot questions BEFORE we get to the voting booth. Well, I have to say, from my personal experience, it is not an easy task to decipher the records of some of the people in question.

The four Judges that are being brought up for retention are the people I am speaking of. I did a Google search about the judges and found generic biography’s for each, plus a very comprehensive and practically unreadable record consisting of the hundreds of cases that have been brought before each of these judges. I can honestly say that because I am not a lawyer with the ability to speak legalese, or well versed with the cases in question, I was not able to get a clear picture of any of these judicial candidates ruling characters.

I then made a call to the party offices in Lafayette and I was not able to get any information there either. A statement from one person at one of the party offices was, “No one ever asks for that kind of information, so everyone pretty much just votes for their retention automatically.”

That is sad in a way. I want to be responsible and make my votes mean something. That is hard to do when you have no information in which to base your decision. So I am posing these questions to you if you are a reader of this blog and you know the answers.

Shall Judge Elaine B. Brown be retained in office? JUDGE, FIFTH DISTRICT
Shall Judge Margret G. Robb be retained in office? JUDGE, FIFTH DISTRICT
Shall Judge Melissa S. May be retained in office? JUDGE, FOURTH DISTRICT
Shall Judge Cale Bradford be retained in office? JUDGE, SECOND DISTRICT

Post a comment on why you think each should or should not be retained. Maybe we can share information that will make our vote truly mean something this November.

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about our duty to vote and our duty to be informed voters when we cast our ballots. I decided to do a little follow up on that article by posting one more article to further help in making informed decisions this November. This post provides links to information to help you decide how you will vote on the five questions that will be part of the ballot in addition to the regular candidate names.

There will be five questions that will require an answer of yes or no. The five questions are:

Shall Judge Elaine B. Brown be retained in office? JUDGE, FIFTH DISTRICT
Shall Judge Margret G. Robb be retained in office? JUDGE, FIFTH DISTRICT
Shall Judge Melissa S. May be retained in office? JUDGE, FOURTH DISTRICT
Shall Judge Cale Bradford be retained in office? JUDGE, SECOND DISTRICT

And PUBLIC QUESTION #1, SHALL PROPERTY TAXES BE LIMITED FOR ALL CLASSES OF PROPERTY by amending the Constitution of the State of Indiana to do the following: (1) Limit a taxpayer’s annual property tax bill to the following percentages of gross assessed value: (A) 1% for an owner-occupied primary residence (homestead); (B) 2% for residential property, other than an owner-occupied primary residence, including apartments; (C) 2% for agricultural land; (D) 3% for other real property; and (E) 3% for personal property. The above percentages exclude any property taxes imposed after being approved by the voters in a referendum. (2) Specify that the General Assembly may grant a property tax exemption in the form of a deduction or credit and exempt a mobile home used as a primary residence to the same extent as real property?

You can find out the history of the rulings that these judges have made up til now and their biographical information at: http://www.in.gov/judiciary/retention/. The ruling information is a little overwhelming for the non-legal professional, so I would suggest taking the additional steps of contacting your local political party offices and talking to them to find out how the particular judge tends to rule on issues in their courts.

You can find plenty of information about Public Question #1 if you do a Google search on the terms, “public question 1 Indiana 2010 ballot”. On the search results page you will find many links about the topic. A small sample of some of the links you will find are as follows: A ballotpedia.org article about Public Question One, http://ballotpedia.org, an article on the top twenty reasons to vote for the tax cap, Top Twenty Reasons to vote yes on Public Question 1, and an article of why you should not vote for the cap, Why you should vote no.

I won’t presume to tell you how to vote but I will say that it is your duty to know what these judges stand for and what the Public Question will mean for the future of Indiana. Please take the time to do a little research just one night before election time so that you can truly be informed.

I have a full time job that does not allow me to know my schedule more than just a few days at a time. This makes it a little more difficult during election season to do my duty as a citizen of the United States. But not impossible. I will have to take advantage of early voting or absentee voting in my precinct before November 2nd to make sure that I get my vote in.

You might ask, why does it matter? Is it really all that important? This year’s election season has taken on a larger than life quality when it comes to the tone of the upcoming elections, so many people might be tempted to accuse me of thinking of voting as more important than normal this November 2nd.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The real truth of it is this, voting is extremely important in every election, not just this one. We have the very great privilege of living in a country and a time that allows us the freedom to have a choice in the people and ideas we put in place to guide our government. It is very important for us as a people to make sure that we exercise our right to vote. But even more important is our responsibility to know why we are voting for the people and ideas that we lend our check mark to.

This makes me ask the question, What good is it to vote if you have no idea why you are voting, or if you have no idea of the long term consequences of your vote? Don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying don’t vote. What I am saying is, please know why you are voting for the person you are choosing. Get to know their record and their ideals. Your decisions of today will have an impact on your life for many years to come.

Do you know who is on the upcoming ballot or what they believe in? No? Then now is the time to begin researching the candidates. To find out who is on your upcoming ballot in November go to https://indianavoters.in.gov/PublicSite/PublicMain.aspx. You can fill in your personal information and then you will be able to find out if you are ellegible to vote and who is will be on your ballot. You will also be able to see what questions will be on the ballot so that you can research them to find out what your choice will mean in each question.

We seem to be able to find time to watch our favorite episodes of NCIS or Covert Affairs on TV. Can we make the time to find out who we will be voting on and what they believe before it is time to cast our ballot? I hope so!