If you’ve already voted, you can ignore this posting. But if you haven’t, here are my heartfelt recommendations (not on every issue or office, just the ones where I really care):

• Barack Obama for President
• Yes on Santa Clara County Measure A: We need a 2/3 supermajority for this issue to pass — and I don’t know about you, but I think it’s worth keeping the trauma and burn centers open instead of closing them down because of seismic problems. Sure, the legislature should have funded the seismic upgrade mandate…but they didn’t, so we have to (and guess what — taxpayers were going to pay it anyway).
• No on California Proposition 8: When it comes to marriage, the State should not discriminate based on how race, national origin, or genders are mixed and matched. The first two are (finally) well established in law; now we need to get the trifecta.
• No on California Proposition 4: If a teenager doesn’t have a good enough relationship with her parents to talk to them about having an abortion, putting the law in the way isn’t going to help.
• Yes on Santa Clara County Measure R: Keep the Campbell Union School District funding stable.

Even if the Presidential race has been called by the time you’re ready to vote, remember that there are plenty of “down-ballot” issues and races which make a difference in your life and the lives of your neighbors!

We spent a surprisingly-quick 90 minutes at the Registrar of Voters’ office this afternoon, applying for and then casting our absentee ballots. We can now safely ignore further appeals for our votes.

So then we drove directly to the local Obama office and spent some time as volunteers — Diane did data entry, and I made calls. I wish I’d planned on volunteering, because I would have brought a headset along and had a much easier time hearing the people on the other end!