CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? VOTING FOR THE FUNNIEST CANDIDATE, UNIQUE SIGN

Happens every election I guess. Makes you cringe to think this is what our families fought for on the high seas and battlegrounds of World War! Voting for the funniest candidate, the most unusual, unique election sign, most peculiar name. I think the “mail-in” ballots may get the attention of the less than astute voters, who just like making marks on paper. It might explain, in some way, why there were so many ballots destroyed four years ago.

Our ears have picked up numerous stories about folks who have recently submitted ballots, voting for a candidate based on strange attractions......none based on the subject candidate’s ability to govern, but because their name, apparent sense of humor, antics, or sign made them standout as the best to govern. Makes you want to cry doesn’t it, especially when the majority of voters care very much about the weight of their actions, in determining what they most desire in local government. When I heard about someone voting for a candidate as a joke on the rest of us, I wondered aloud if he would have done the same novelty vote, if he had been forced to attend a polling booth instead.

We can’t afford this kind of attitude. But it does explain the growing apathy out there to elections and democracy itself. Wasting a vote is like a blood clot being set loose through our arteries, and the same folks voting with humor and anecdote as the incentive, don’t give a rat’s arse about wetlands, urban sprawl, services, and fiscal responsibility. It’s bloody scary because in a close vote these clownish pranks count. It’s a type of election vandalism that sticks around for four years, and screws up democracy at the same time. Why would anyone think it was good fun to purposely vote for a candidate based on the size and graphics of a sign. The sign doesn’t govern our municipality!

We heard about another voting family who said they would not support for a particular candidate based on their false assumption that this same person had brought in, almost single handedly, every bad thing the town had experienced since Moses. When it was brought to their attention this was not quite right, let alone fair, they cocked their collective heads, and reiterated, “Well, we can’t vote for him anyway.” Not based on fact but based on faulty logic. There’s a lot of that circulating out there and it’s a damnation.

Please educate yourself first. Don’t vote on assumption. Don’t vote as a lark. We really can’t afford this frivolity.