Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Our United States of Voting Fiascoes

I’ve spent a good chunk of today thinking this post over. It may not mean much to many, it isn’t really uber survival. It is opinion sprinkled with fact and personal experience. We’re talkin’ about the election/voting fiasco going on right now. It is a repeat of sorts of the 2000 election. It is beginning to show exactly how little your vote, and mine, actually count. CNN ran a story (probably still is given the repeat factor) today on “The Fight to Vote”.

First, the troubles of registered voters in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Georgia (I’m sure, POSITIVE, that there are more). How many are being turned away, purged from the system or not even IN the system? The numbers are staggering thus far.

Then you factor in the absentee ballots of our fighting men and women overseas. Many didn’t get counted in 2000, many won’t get counted this year either. Who else deserves the right to vote more than those that lay their lives on the line daily protecting our country, our rights and way of life (all of which are being washed down the drain, dictated to death by an elitist group of overpaid negotiators)? This is where my personal experience comes in to play.

November 2000: We, the spouse and myself, were stationed in Germany. We NEVER received our absentee ballots to vote, not that it mattered much as from what we could tell from the coverage in Germany…our votes most likely wouldn’t have been counted anyway.

So why the post? Because I see the vote of 2000 happening all over again. Only worse. A re-count fight, court battle and other little tricks that both sides ALREADY have up their long sleeves will be the straw on the camel. If you thought there was nasty back then, just hold your breath…it’s going to be total chaos. It’s likely to be chaos to an extent anyway, neither side will concede easily. Not necessarily the candidates, the voters/supporters of the candidates are the ones that will make it chaos.

We’ve already seen the power that each candidate holds over his supporters, sheeple will follow the voice most soothing it seems and devote everything they have. Kinda like religious zealots. Frightening, is it not?

Me and mine will do as much as possible to stay out of the way next week. I'm hitting the early voting on Thursday (3rd party, my vote and I'll "waste" it however I want thank you very much) then it's home as much as possible. The spouse will still go to work, life will go on...we can't not go on but we can stay out of hot zones. There will be no going to the City, we'll stick to our small town.

6 comments:

d.a. said...

I hear you, and agree - this election has the potential to be very, very messy. Regardless, as a former election officer I thank you for exercising your right to vote!

I'll be hitting the polls this Thursday as well, then hunkering down in the homestead with plenty of popcorn and warm blankets on Election Day.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure that I entirely agree with your sentiment that folks in the military may be somehow more entitled to vote than civilians. While I certainly appreciate the work done by the military, that appreciation has to be tempered by the fact that several of the governments kept in line are exactly those governments which gave the military additional say in how they were run (i.e. military dictatorships).

They do their part, and we all ought to do ours.

It's me said...

I say "waste your vote for Ron Paul"... and if we survive the next four years (no matter which parts gets in, we're hosed) then perhaps it'll be RP 2012! :)

Yeah. I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do. I think my state has some weird write-in laws.

northgal said...

I hear you also, I will finally breathe a sigh of relief when election night is finally here...but then will come the discourse of who really won and all the legal beagle stuff. I voted absentee ballot for the first time in 2004 when I was caring for my terminally ill twin sister. She and I faithfully watched all the debates. We remembered what our own grandparents went through to come to America to start a new life for themselves and their children.

Jess (Ozark Momma) said...

Kiwano~ I do agree that there is no one group of people that deserves the right to vote more than any other. My point was, will the vote be counted?

I know that the Spouse and I were not the only ones stationed at that little post that didn't get a ballot to even vote with, something like 85% of the people we knew never got one. Then we got to sit and watch the fiasco that followed with 100's of 1000's of overseas ballots that were trashed, ignored and not counted.

That to many of us stationed far from home just said "you don't matter". And it pissed us off.

Mayberry said...

If more people decided to "waste" their vote on 3rd party, then 3rd parties would become viable.... The "wasted vote" line is merely bleating of the sheeple who are parroting the 2 party system's propaganda.....

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. --Edmund Burke