For your perusal. Note, as Alan Bernstein did, that the special election for SD17 is the first thing people in that district will see, before the straight-ticket and Presidential races. If the other counties do the same thing, there should be very little dropoff in that race.
Also of interest: the locations and schedule (PDF) for early voting in Harris County. Note that there are now 36 locations, three more than in 2004 and one more than in March, and that four of those locations are at new addresses. Carl Whitmarsh sent out an email earlier, forwarded from HCDP Chair Gerry Birnberg, that thanks to the efforts of Council Member Sue Lovell, the super busy West Gray Multi Service Center location will have additional space allocated for early voting, so it may not have such crazy long lines as before. I’d still advise getting there, or to any EV location, as early in the day as you can. I also think there needs to be another non-downtown, west of I-45, inside the Loop EV location to help alleviate the traffic there and at the Astrodome site. That will be a battle for another day.
Finally, for more information about the EV locations and voting rights, check out the nifty Google map on the HCDP08 page.
Is there any justification as to why the Republican candidates appear above the Democrat candidates in every race?
This seems especially unfair in SD17 where you have 4 different Republicans who are all basically nonexistent in the polls before you get to the leading candidate.
Shouldn’t these things be randomized? Or are they done in the order that they were filed and every Republicans happened to file first?
If you prefer the English/Vietnamese sample ballot…
INCUMBENTS GET LISTED FIRST