Along with voting in this important Presidential election we also had three questions on our ballots.
The first question was whether to continue having our judges appointed (no) or hold elections to choose them (yes). I voted "no". I could easily argue this both ways--voting "yes" inserts politics into our courts making judges have to lobby for votes and voting "no" continues our current practice which has worked and also interjects politics in the courtrooms--only the judges are lobbying elected officials. Ultimately, I chose "no" because I feel like we elect our officials thereby asking them to speak on our behalf with their appointments and after judges are appointed we vote whether to retain them in office.
The second question was whether to approve or not the Johnson County Research Triangle and increase sales taxes by one-eighth of a percent to fund the Research Triangle. I voted "yes". This tax increase will create a source of funding for cancer research, food safety research and animal health research to state the University of Kansas Edwards Campus, Johnson County Community College and a local location of Kansas State University. Essentially, this tax increase helps bring this important research local and will impact our community positively by creating a clinical trails cancer research center right here. It gives us an opportunity to have cutting edge care available to us at the earliest stage of development.
The third question was a city question that asked voters to approve bonds to improve our public school district--more specifically this bond would fund the moving of 9th grade to the high schools and 6th grade to the junior high schools. Our district is among the top in the nation because voters have consistently funded improvement projects to upgrade technology, facilities and increase teacher pay. Our family is a huge proponent of public education and we understand that along with being actively involved in our children's education we need to be willing to fund advancement opportunities as our district is rapidly growing. My vote was "yes"!
Early voting began in Kansas yesterday and election workers were telling us that just yesterday alone they had 2000 voters and by 8:45 this morning they had already seen 300 voters. I am excited to see such a huge turnout of voters. I am hopeful there are enough of us Obama/Biden voters to turn Kansas blue--and if not blue, at least purple!
Party politics aside, we, as a nation, cannot accomplish anything unless we exercise our right to vote. Please VOTE!!! No matter who you support it is important to be counted and heard!
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