h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The results will be out on my mother's birthday, so she's wishing for the right outcome!

Having just returned from 3 weeks in the US I am very interested to see what happens in the election. All the tv adverts were so funny! Basically trying to destroy each other by saying how their competitor is a liar or has done things wrong, blah blah blah...."I'm John Mcain and I approve this message". From a Brit point of view it was rather like pantomime - we have nothing quite so entertaining in our politics It actually got me interested for the first time ever! I will be watching the results very closely.

Happy weekend all

That's how I felt about it when I was over there. It's surreal!

I don't usually pay attention to any of the TV commercials- the debates are enough.

Fortunately this time I knew a little about one of the candidates ahead of time because I'm already a constituent- Obama is my Senator, and has done some good things for Illinois.

Early voting started October 13, and I cast my ballot then. I walk right past a branch of the library on my way home from my train, as it's about a block or so from home. Early voting is kind of nice- no lines!

I watched a debate between Mcain and Obama and for me Obama wins. I can imagine him as President, but the other guy is just too short to run the country! He simply does not come across as trustworthy. If I could vote I would vote for Obama, I really like him.

I like the idea of early voting. No waiting in line for ages, such a good idea.

There have been l-o-n-g lines in my city, even for early voting.

At least that means people are actually voting!

Good point!

I think it helped that I was there on the first day, and also at around 4:30 in the afternoon, when many people are still at or on the way home from work.

It's always good to see people voting, though. There were a half dozen other people there when I went.

It is good to see people voting. It annoys me in the UK when we get really low turnouts for elections. Non-voters interviewed on tv say they didn't vote because it wouldn't make a difference; I think if 70% of ballot papers were spoiled (rather than 70% not voting) it *would* make a difference.

I'm not sure if I'd vote for either Obama or McCain. Is there another choice? And how does the Presidential election tie-in with Senate and Congress?

Please forgive my ignorance of the US political system; I studied politics over 10 years ago so I've forgotten more than I remember.

I didn't notice any other candidates for President/VP (you cast onevote for both, not individually). The only two choices I saw on my screen were Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin. But I voted early (absentee) and it was electronic- if there was a paper ballot one could write-in a vote for anyone one wanted. Seriously, you could even waste your vote by writing in a non-existent character, as a form of protest- it's a wasted vote, but it's legal.

Voters vote for their senators and their representative at the same time. Obama is one of my incumbent senators; as he's running for President we had a new candidate for one of our senators. Her father is my alderman, and I'm not a fan of his, but I voted for her because she's the Democrat. My other two incumbents- Dick Durbin and Luis Gutierrez- are running for re-election and I had no reason not to vote for them. Since I have experience with Obama as my senator and with all of the good he's done in office, I had no problem with voting for him.

Basically you vote for all federal offices at the same time.

I'm sure there are many USians who are more ignorant of our political system. Heck, I don't understand the half of it.

Here's a link to the Federal Election Board web site with some basic info. I don't want to go on and on and on...

http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers.shtml

I did the US system in A Level Politics for a bit but you know I didn't pay much attention, and the teacher was a drunk who'd stick on "A Week In Politics" and go to sleep at the back of the class (good show, Vincent Hanna RIP), but be that as it may - as far as I get it, any bill introduced by Prez has to be passed by the House of Reps and Senate (unless, as Bush has, he employs the Presidential veto) as with the Lords here. With both chambers majority Democrat, and McCain promising not to be Bush, we can at least hope for better times even if he does get in, as long as he doesn't die in office, or bring back all the hawks.

I'm sure he'd be better than Bush- but that's not saying much. He's still on record as approving of legislation that interferes with women's health care, and he's on record as being in favor of increased tax breaks to the wealthiest individuals and corporations at the expense of the middle class. You can't forget that no matter how many votes something gets in the Senate or the House, the president still has the power to veto. We won't even think about what would happen if he died in office and that incompetent bimbo took over.