Today is election day. If you are reading this, you are most likely an election enthusiast and will likely vote – but in the off chance that you are considering not voting, here is my encouragement to do so. Exercise your right to choose the people who govern us. Don’t like the candidates running? write someone in. Turned off by the negativity and lack of civil debate? No one will ever know if you stay home. Most states have several choices on the ballot – Politics1 highlights many of the candidates running for state and federal offices.

I cast my ballot this morning – a fill-in-the-oval paper ballot to be read by an optical scanner. This is a fast, relatively accurate system with full independent audit capability. Here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, there are unfortunately not a lot of contested races – my Representative in Congress in the 4th district, Barney Frank (D), is unopposed. The Senate race (Edward Kennedy (D)) has not been competitive, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Auditor have no Republican challenger (they do however, have either Green-Rainbow or Working Families party challengers). The Governor’s race has been, by far, the most interesting and productive public debate (although the campaign was too negative in my opinion). There are three interesting ballot initiatives, however, and I cast my support for Question 2, allowing candidates to run on multiple ballot lines, more commonly referred to as fusion.

The Atlas will be posting updates throughout the evening for Senatorial and Gubernatorial races across the nation.