...this evening and when I walked up to the table where they check off your name and you sign in, I picked up a ballot sheet to check out all of the candidates. I already had a good idea of for whom I would vote but wanted to check and see all that were running. As I glanced at the sheet I noticed one candidate in at least 4 parties with only one person in some off the wall party opposing him. Then I noticed someone running for judge. She was listed in each and every party's column on the page. I asked if it was a misprint or a joke. The people who were working at the polling place were obviously flummoxed. One lady told me it MUST be right.
Okay, I went in and voted but not before getting a number for the local board of elections because you can bet I will make an inquiry about how someone can run unopposed and be in each and every party while at the same time actually representing any one of those parties and its political platform. I will also ask why Spanish language appeared first and foremost above English in some of the directions on the sheet. This is still America, United States of - isn't it? I mean we are not in the socialist/communist tyranny of Cuba are we? Maybe someone took over while I was sleeping last night! I figure Spanish would be the primary language there, and they probably vote just like that in Cuba - one person running as the candidate of all parties - don't ya think!
Now as I was voting, I heard one of the workers say to another that the woman running for judge was unopposed and therefore she would naturally be listed as the candidate for all of the political parties on the sheet. Do you see anything wrong with that kind of logic? I sure do. When I mentioned, on my way out, that I had overheard that comment, and that if someone runs unopposed and is running on the platform of a certain political party then that does not automatically qualify them to run as a representative of all parties - that person should be shown with that person's actual party affiliation - otherwise we have lost something here in America - something that makes us Americans as opposed to dupes under a dictatorship or tyranny. One guy shook his head in agreement and said mmmmm mmmmm mmmm (thankfully without invoking the name of BHO).
Oh well, I just don't get it. If all of the parities involved allowed one woman to run as a representative of their party then there is truly something wrong with the system. If on the other hand she just ran unopposed and was a member of only one or two parties (such as Dem/Lib or Rep/Con) but was listed under all parties - then the election board needs to get it right and redo the election. Why - since she was running unopposed. Well what about the candidate who runs as a representative of say 4 of 5 listed parties and he is opposed by one other guy from the Bumstock party who actually runs as a Bumstockian. Now the first guy gets in under the Republicans, the Democrats, The Conservatives, and the Independents even though he is only a member of one of them and the Bumstockian candidate is in just under the party with which he is affiliated. Many of the voters who are not Bumstockians would never vote for anyone in that party and as far as they knew no one candidate had been nominated by their own party. Then when they get to the polling place they are surprised to see the first guy listed in 4 rows for 4 different political parties. They think - wow our party must have thought him okay and as a matter of fact so did three other parties. I guess we ought to vote for him because of party affiliation. So all the voters who are members of the other three parties (other than the one for which the guy received a nomination) under whose guise he is running now vote for him instead of the guy for the Bumstockian party only because of party affiliation. That is less than fair, in fact it seems underhanded to me. It seems like something that would be finagled in the old USSR. Maybe I am wrong, maybe the guy got all 4 nominations from 4 different parties - but if so then the system is broken and broken badly.
As I said, I don't get it - is this the good old US of A or not?
All the best,
GB
