What is your approach to voting?

Obama says he is God, mocks the Bible https://youtu.be/eY984VuVk_Q

Several Days before the election or early voting I usually go to my county voting site. I print up a copy of "my" sample ballot.

I then go through each individual and each issue on the ballot. I research them and make a decision on who I feel is the best candidate for that office.

I try to be fair and impartial on my decision making.

However, I must admit that the political arena causes me a lot of conflict based on political agendas and political party rhetoric.

In a perfect world each candidate should want to improve the office they are running for. They may just have a different approach of how to improve it. We should hope that they have a well thought out plan instead of just saying that they plan to fix it. We've all heard that before, like some of the candidates are saying now. Without pushing my opinion, I ask everyone to do your home work and find a candidate that shares many of your own views. That being said, we are sharing this on a military related site so the biggest common denominator should be, we should vote for a candidate that supports the military.

A few thoughts:
1. I vote every opportunity. More so to maintain/prove state of residence than anything else but I still vote.
2. I don't have time or energy to research local and some state level so I vote party line under assumption that the party has put forward good candidates and there is a need to grow candidates up to the national level.
3. I research the issues for national level candidates (Congress, POTUS) and vote for the guy/gal who most closely aligns with my view points.
4. I refrain from most other political activity otherwise for several reasons but mainly because I do not want others knowing my political viewpoints as an active duty military officer. The military best serves our nation when it is and is seen to be apolitical.

As a general rule due to massive corruption in both political parties, I'm inclined to support third parties unless those third parties are themselves pushing a corporate agenda. I'll make exceptions for Democratic and/or Republican candidates who reject Super PACs, Dark Money and who get most of their funding (75-80% at least) from voters like you and I.

For example, in the current presidential Elections Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, Donald Trump and Jill Stein are independent enough from Wall Street to warrant consideration. Then I look at where candidates stand on issues like Climate Change, Economic Justice, Individual Liberty and the our role in international affairs. That leaves only two viable candidates, with one (Bernie Sanders) much more likely to be elected and effective once elected than the other (Jill Stein).

If Sanders doesn't get the nomination then the only reasonable candidate (from my perspective) is Jill Stein, even though I harbor little hope that she could be elected or that if elected she would be able to govern well.

I refuse to participate in the process.
I feel by not voting, and my voice is heard more then if I did vote. To Quote Joseph Stalin.
"It Doesn't matter WHO the people vote for, but Who counts the votes." By the time a politician gets to reach that level of office they have been bought and paid for many times over.

I agree with everyone else. WHO can best represent America? WHO can take us from now into tomorrow, and make the next day better than that? I'm finding this to be in short order with what is out running for any elected office in either party. IMO voting is important, but has lost the "I did my part" feel. It's more towards "who has the most money backing them", and they get elected. I'm waiting for someone who really represents America from color to social economic class, from sexual choice to religious freedom. I don't see that, and it's a shame. It's like going to a change of command, and at the end, the incoming commander says "all policies and procedures are still in effect", or something to that effect meaning the everything remains the same. The voters might change, but who they're voting for doesn't.

I consider many things when voting, including character, experience, intelligence and of course individual issues.

Issues are if ficus part of the analysis for me as I have many contradictory views that no candidate can cover. For instance, I'm vehemently pro-choice, but also pro-gun. Wi such conflicts, I look at the lobbies and forces for the issue and choose based on which I issues is best situated to defend itself. The NRA being a much more powerful lobby and gun rights being harder to attack politically I am often forced to vote an anti-gun politician and leave it to the NRA to protect my gun rights, knowing that if I went the other way that legal abortion advocates have no NRA and the right to choose woud be in more peril from an anti-choice politician that the right to bear arms is from an anti-gun politician.

My biggest issues are, in order of importance, Supreme Court nominations, separation of church and state, foreign policy, immigration reform and abortion rights. I am social liberal and a fiscal moderate, though I have o n many occasions voted for Republicans including George H.W. Bush for president and Armold Scheartzenegger for governor, twice. In the current cycle I would strongly consider voting for Graham or Kasich if they got the nomination, but could never vote for a candidate l Ike Cruz, Trump or Carson who I see as very dangerous for both their anti-immigrant rhetoric and their overly religious campaign philosophies. On the Democratic side I was hoping Joe Biden would run as I've always liked and respected him, and also like Martin O'Malley, thou his campaign isn't viable in my opinion (he's running for VP, I leaves Clinton and Sanders, and in that choice I woud pick Clinton.

The hard part is a Clinton run against a GOP moderate I,e Graham or Kasich, in which I case I would very carefully consider what was l ikely to happen and also whether or not the senate or house were likely to flip. I woud never vote GOP if the GOP was. Likely to keep both chambers as then there woud, be no protection from the religious right of the Tea Party types legislating religion into law while cutting taxes on those who need to pay them. I'm not particularly fond of Clinton, but I have no doubt that she has the experience and intelligence required, which Trump, Carson and Fiorina (the "Political Outsiders") do not.

In short, it's a difficult process that I take very seriously. I actually was leaning tore Romney early in the 2012 cycle, and woud have voted for him in 2008 had he wo n the nomination. In 2012 however he took a turn to the hard right to try and be more "severely conservative" in response to the religious right candidate Rick "Bible over Constitution" Santorum. That meant that if he was just landing to the religious right in 2012 he was a liar, or that if he had in fact swung hard right, that I could not vote for him for ideological reasons.

Generally with one hand pinching my nose closed and the other holding back the vomit. I'll leave it to your imagination to surmise how I mark my ballot.

I avoid grouping myself into a political party and narrowing my views and ability to think for myself. I rather take a step back, assess the issue and form my own opinion(s)/view(s) on the issue and go from there. I've been called a Liberal, Democrat, Republican, Tea Partier, amongst some other names - simply by sharing my views on certain issues. I don't understand the limiting yourself concept to just a single party - regardless how poor the candidates are or how out of touch their stance on issues are. It's America though, you have the right to label yourself a Republican or Democrat and i'll support that - but I will always wonder why people limit themselves politically. Politics isn't a sport and the Democrats and Republicans aren't the only teams playing on the field.