Election Day in Tucson: Please vote

Today-- Tuesday, November 8-- is Election Day. This year the Tucson City Council passed a resolution allowing an all-mail-in ballot. If you still have your mail-in ballot, you can deliver it to a number of polling places around the city, but it's too late to mail it.

Ballots must be delivered to one of these locations by 7 p.m. tonight.

If you're still undecided, here is some background information from the Tucson Citizen.

After the August primary, the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Tucson Chapter e-mailed questionnaires to all of the candidates still left standing– Grinnell, Rothschild, and DeCamp in the mayor’s race, and Republicans Jennifer Rawson and Tyler Vogt, Green Beryl Baker, and Democratic incumbents Shirley Scott, Paul Cunningham, and Regina Romero for City Council. The 20 questions were based upon PDA’s core issues: economic and social justice, corporate personhood, universal healthcare, global warming and the environment, fair and transparent elections, and end the wars/redirect the funding.

PDA didn’t really expect the Republicans to answer our questions, and they didn’t. But we were really surprised when none of the Democratic incumbents for City Council answered them either. Only three candidates took the time to answer our questionnaire–Rothschild, DeCamp, and Baker.

Both Rothschild and DeCamp also agreed to personal interviews with 2-3 PDA Steering Committee members. Each of the interviewers scored the questions independently with a possible 2 points for each question for a total of 40 points for a perfect score (ie, the candates’ responses were well-aligned with PDA’s stance on core issues); partial responses received 1 point; and off-the-mark, woefully incomplete, or unanswered responses received 0 points.

In the end, with surprising consistency across the interviewers, the composite scores were: Rothschild 29 and DeCamp 26 (pretty darn close for a mainstream candidate vs a green).

For additional details about the candidates' answers to PDA's questionnaire and analysis regarding their similarities and differences, click here. For background on Grinnell--the Republican candidate for mayor and definitely not a progressive choice-- click here.