My friend John sent this and I thought it was interesting. Rights for minorities are rarely increased at the ballot box. It says a lot of good things about CA that we came so incredibly close. Shame on those who stayed home.
Also, I have a pile of money waiting for the organization that is going to run constant, incessant but pleasant pro-gay-marriage advertisements in Utah from now until 2012. Really, they just need to get to know us better and they won’t hate us so much.
You all probably know my feelings about me personally writing on this kind of topic, but I just had to express a bit of shock that borders on incredulity…
My thought goes like this, “Was this years election less important and less likely to get voters out to the polls then the 2004 election?” Here’s why I ask:
Take these two pages from the CA Secretary of State, both of which say 100% of precincts have reported:
2008 Election Results
2004 Election Results
According to these numbers:
1. 400,405 more Californians went to the polls for Kerry than Obama.
2. 1,625,143 more Californians went to the polls for Bush than McCain.
3. 47,380 more Californians voted for all other parties in 2004 than 2008.
That means, overall, 2,072,928 more Californians voted in 2004 than 2008.
Nationally in 2004, according to CNN (with 100% of precincts counted), 121,068,715 Americans voted as opposed to 122,326,868 (with 99% of precincts counted as of this writing) in 2008, for a difference of 1,258,153 more in 2008.
So, more Americans in general turned out for this “historic” election but Californians must have considered it less “historic” since we were expecting higher turnout yet more than two million of us just decided not to show up. (Really, that’s a question.)
My point (if it’s not painfully obvious)? Prop 8 won by 510,000 votes, but where the fuck are these other two million (at least) voters?
Suspiciously Yours,
John