I suggest the largest segment of the population will be delighted when voting is made quicker,
easier, more convenient and voter friendly through modern electronic technology. Many voters
will be delighted to be able to vote quickly and not have to make trips across towns to vote
as voting for many is now a chore.
The fact voting will be easier should mean it will be done more. Convenience will boost
democratic participation but this possible increase in participating in democracy may
mean shifts in political power that are not widely desired by many politicians in power.
Those in power do not wish an added variable that may deprive them of power. But
I think most of the people will welcome easier voting and more democratic participation.
They will be delighted voters.
Of course there will be as always a few who will balk on the fact someone, somewhere
may vote illegally. And, yes, you may be sure that will sometimes be the case. But I do not think
the number will be anymore significant than previously. Slip ups already exist. One possible
example is if the Bush-Gore election in Florida when the brother of George Bush, Jeb Bush, was
Governor of the state.
But one positive thing about the more modern way of voting is it will be DIGITAL.
It will hopefully not be influenced by as man factors as provincial place voting supervised
by provincial officials.
Also when the people discover that their new votes will be on a damn real issue thus
mean something, I think many people will be transformed with a new enthusiasm for
democracy. As they realize their votes will sometimes count on issues the participation
in the democratic system by the people will pick up. There will be a lift in the spirits of the
people about democracy.
As it is the present system is having to cast a media purified vote of choice between two candidates
who have been approved by their political parties (parties whose approval often means the kiss of
death on moral independence, creativity, originality and thinking outside the box). Voters are
often not overly enthused about having two political party zombies to vote for. (Thus the wide
array of independents.
A two party choice of hype-advertised media personalities is an imitation of the way movies
used to be sold in Hollywood. You have to give a blank check in your voting to a Hollywood
personality being sold on their looks.
But if you are a mature voter, you wish to talk issues. Yet no matter what candidates say they may
“feel” about issues, their feelings often have little to do with how they will vote on issues. (I know of
one highly schooled candidate who hired sociologists to stand outside factories and ask the working
people what their opinions were. In time the candidates recited everything the factory workers said in
speeches to get elected.
He was elected, but didn’t vote when elected as he said he felt.. Such is tour non-binding system of
Washington political gasi now in vogue. The founding fathers were men of honor, but honor has long
been gone and unfashionable in politics. Times are different now. What politicians now may say are
often farts in the wind of paid publicity.
(Certainly you have realized this? What a politician running for office says may have little or nothing to
do with how he will vote on an issue, but to have your own vote on issues will give you a voice. Your
vote counts when what a politician says well may not. To have your own vote is a coin in the bank.
The promises of a politician getting elected may well be another Washington swindle. Which is to be
trusted? You to have a vote? Or a promise to vote for you from some politician whose speech writers
are paid, whose image is created by a publicity agent, whose campaign is handled by a Washington
professional political agency.
Don’t be just another rube being swindled by Washington promises. The delighted voter has his own
vote on issues. Get your vote and cast it as your conscience dictates, come hell or high water. I would
be a crook or a fool to advise you otherwise! “To thine own self be true,” said Shakespeare.
If you would be true to yourself, true to the Democratic Way, see you get your vote on issues. It is
your democratic due. See you get it, keep it and vote it only according to your conscience! The people
should be the end of the line, the place the buck stops.. Not Washington D.C.