[Olorin]

I officially became a "decline to state" voter several elections ago. Of course, a voter without a party affiliation can't just be called "Independent" because that means you're signed up with the American Independent Party.

Normally, if you're not registered with a particular party, then you cannot vote in the primary races. You can still vote in any local elections, and for the final elections for all offices. In California, those of us without a party affiliation can actually ask to vote in either the Republican or the Democratic primary each time. We can't vote for both in the same year, but each election, we can choose which primary to vote in (though registered Democrats can't choose to vote in the Republican primary or vice versa).

I'll be voting on Tuesday. We have a lot of propositions on the ballot, and I want to vote against all these bond proposals. It makes no sense to me to take out 30 year loans to pay for things like road maintenance that are going to need to be paid for every year.

I often agree that their are often no good choices between political candidates. The problem seems to get worse the bigger the office is (sometimes you see good people in local politics, but at the state and national level, it's very rare). I'm often tempted to write in "None of the above" to register my disapproval of the choices that the major parties give me.

I've often wondered if the ballots all had "none of the above" as a choice, how often a majority would choose to have no one rather than the choices we're given.