Mock the Vote
It's November 7. So, um.. go vote. Yeah. Woo. Vote. Yeehaw.
I have berated people in the past for not voting. I'll admit that up front. So I'm clearly a hypocrite because I don't see myself voting this year. Why? I have no idea who the candidates are, and I'd feel like a shill if I walked in and voted for every candidate with an (R) after their name. I've said in the past that if you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain about who gets elected. I'm ok with that. I couldn't name a single person in any Washington state office right now anyway.
Thankfully I have been able to avoid most of the stupid campaign commercials (fast forwarding on TV, and listening to my iPod in the car.) They're a bad way to get your info anyway. Do you vote for the guy who beat up a kid at school lunch with an empty pudding container or the woman who voted for public hangings of monkeys who fling poo at the zoo? It's a tough choice.
So let's say that I can find an unbiased piece of paper that says exactly what each candidate stands for. Even given that info, how do you vote? Net neutrality is really important to me, but that's likely to cut a wide swath across party lines. Do I vote just on that issue or do I take into account others that are important too? What about the war? What about taxes? If I look at too many issues, then all my votes are going to end up canceling themselves out because the candidates won't agree on all of them.
Maybe I should just vote based on the number of signs I see on the street. Is there a more useless way to advertise your candidate? "Vote for Joe!" Oh thanks for the insight into your political platform. Me like sign. Me vote for you. My favorite are the signs around here for 933. "Vote No On 933!" "Vote Yes On 933!" Clever. Do you assume we're so dumb that we won't look up what 933 is before we vote? (Actually that's probably a good assumption.)
So there we have it. I'm a hypocrite. I used to be way too political, and now I'm not political enough. I imagine this will all even out in the future and I'll find some sort of happy medium. The presidential campaigns will be enough for me to hit the flaky electronic voting machines so that my vote can be hacked too.