I think it took all of three minutes to vote. Seriously, there was hardly any turnout at my local polling station. There was one woman leaving when I got there, and two men and another woman showed up as I was on my way out. No lines, no pollsters, no campaigners hanging out the prescribed distance from the door. No buzz. Nothing. Just four pleasant elderly women, three manning the sign-in table, another monitoring the ballot-recording machine. They were all a bit surprisedto see a driping bicyclist squelch in and request a ballot. One of the ladies said she has a neighbor who bikes like I do, but she couldn’t remember his full name. Chris, who is an architect and whose wife is an architect also. Considering how small of a world the Kansas City cycling community is, I’m kind of amazed that I don’t know Chris the biking architect. Especially since he lives just north of me, apparently.
Low voter turnout depresses me. I think it is a product of our chintzy “representational” voting system. I have a suspicion that if it were truly 1-person-1-vote, more people would find it in themselves to get their silly asses down to their local polling station and cast their ballots. I also think that low voter turnout is a justification for retaining the electoral college and for not tightening up the voting system and demanding accountability and meaningful fraud protection.
Some of you may have seen these videos before, others of you may have not. It doesn’t matter which side of the political balance beam you stand on, the questionable functionality, security, and transparency of our voting system should worry and anger you. Please watch these videos. They are not fun or funny, but they contain information that EVERYBODY in the USA should view and consider.
Courtesy of spreadtheword.com
“..the questionable functionality, security, and transparency of our voting system should worry and anger you.”
Yep. We’re so generally passive about this stuff. I wonder why.