It’s an election year. Normally I don’t talk about politics. Politics, along with Religion, Money and Sex, is a topic that is guaranteed to start an argument whenever the topic is broached.
I do believe in voting. I think it is the one time we the people get to have any real say in our political process. The rest of the time things are run by Political Action Committees (PACs) and whoever has the most money.
Even though I believe in voting, I think I have a consistent record of always backing whoever is not going to win. Seriously. I don’t think anyone or any topic I have ever voted for has won. I would guess that if the people who track these things studied my voting and who I plan to vote for they would know right off the bet who is going to win the election. No more need for counting all the electoral votes and waiting for results to come in. Just find out who I voted for and declare the other person the winner and be done with it.
Also, I’m not a fan of the electronic voting system. I remember getting into several debates with people when the electronic voting machines were first coming out. Having worked in IT and as a programmer I figure there are too may ways the process can be hacked to really make it safe. Then again, paper ballots being hand tallied can be hacked too.
The biggest drawback to the electronic voting system, in my humble opinion, is that now everyone knows which way I vote. My ballot is stored electronically and tied to me personally. I am opposed to that. The great thing about elections is that your vote is private. No one else is supposed to know how you voted. It’s between you and whatever higher power you choose to believe in.
Not any more, though. After the last election I started getting texts and phone calls from the political party my candidate belonged to. They wanted to have me fill out followup surveys. And of course make contributions to their campaigns.
That should not happen. I believe in the right to privacy. Its bad that everything you buy in the stores, or view online, or access on your phone, is tracked, sorted, analyzed and collated, not just by advertisers but by corporations, political parties, and who knows who else. I have the feeling that the Founding Fathers would not have wanted things to go this way when they first set up the country.
Enough rambling for now.
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