Why I Am Not Voting in the 2007 New York General Election

I have spent this morning deciphering bureaucratic bullshit in an attempt to decide who I want to support for the Presidential Primary. As of now I am officially undecided on who I want to vote for in the primary. I lean towards Ron Paul in the Republicans and Mike Gravel in the Democrats. In reality I want to vote in both primaries.

Apparently New York has a rule that you can only change your party affiliation once per year, and it goes into "affect one week after the general election." The voter registration deadline for the 2007 general election is tomorrow, Oct 12. This rules out registering as an Independent and changing that before the primary. It seems I would have to make my decision in the next 24 hours as to who to vote for in the primary.

Since I moved to Brooklyn from Ohio this summer, I am registering as a new voter and could register for the primary before January 11, 2008 (here and here), but that would mean missing the 2007 general election.

Then I thought, "What is on the ballot anyway?"

The NY Senate election is in 2008, the NYC Mayor Election is in 2009, the NY Governor's election is 2010. It turns out that there are only a few races in Brooklyn this year on the ballot, with very little opposition. The only close race on my ballot is to decide which Democratically backed candidate will become the first black woman to serve on the Surrogate Court.

I have decided that I would rather wait until January to decide what candidate and party I want to support in the 2008 Presidential Election than choose which of the two democratically backed candidates will serve on a local Court. Otherwise I would rush my decision since I must immediately declare a political party. In some strange way not voting will make me a more informed voter.