Free and Fair Elections and other jokes
I recently heard a radio commentator mention the phrase “Free and Fair elections” and I had to laugh. It was the joke of the day.
If you think our elections, with the impending primaries, mid-terms and so on are Free and Fair, then you are in for a surprise!
I noticed proposed legislation, just signed into law in Georgia by Governor Brian Kemp to make five metro Atlanta counties nonpartisan, meaning that the ballot would not be labeled, typically Republican or Democratic, just names. Why?
The idea is that the voters who have NO IDEA who they are voting for will use the R or D to make their decisions. By removing that, the heavily black, not Black, population of voters will inadvertently vote for Republicans. And the white, not White, voters may have a little more knowledge about who they are voting for (I doubt it) and vote Republican so that the ballot results are skewed to the right.
The truth based on my research is as follows –
1 The elections are NOT free, at least for the candidates since they pay whichever party they want to represent a lot of money to get on the ballot, or secure enough people to sign a petition to be listed, and possibly a combination of the two. They are free for the public, but they don’t know who they are voting for anyway, so being free is not that valuable, since the public is easily manipulated. Lambs to the slaughter.
2 Since name recognition is all important, which explains the zillions of vote-for-me signs everywhere before an election, plus YouTube and other ads watched on TV or electronic devices. Even billboards in highly trafficked areas.
For example, if President Trump would not made the very popular Apprentice TV show, most people would have not checked that box. Name recognition is all important, even when you’ve been convicted of 34 felonies before being voted in the second time after or the six Chapter 11 business bankruptcies before the first time, didn’t make a difference. It’s the name that counts.
And you may have noticed that if a candidate is seeking reelection (they all do, since they like their faces in the public money trough) that very few of them have any opponents. The chances of not being reelected is next to zero.
That’s why you often see a single, incumbent candidate as it’s a waste of time and money to attempt to defeat them, as even a single vote for the single candidates creates a “landslide” win! When that elected official does not stand, the many, many candidates come out of the woodwork and there is a runoff. The con job of run offs will be written about later.
That leads me to point 3.
3 Lying. A long time ago I have heard that the Aztecs in a part of Mexico decided to only make sacrifices to the serpent god, Quetzelcoatl, once a week, using local politicians who lied to the public. After a few years, they stopped doing that. Why? No more politicians left. None!
As you know politicians tells the public anything that they want to hear, so some of public will associate what they’d like with a name and check that box. And as you know, that politicians probably make a show of “trying” to follow through and then do the opposite, blaming the opposing party for the failure. It’s a common technique that works time and again. Take credit for what happens in your favor and blame the opposing party for its failure.
4 The last name of a candidate is important. Why? The ballots are usually alphabetized so a last name of Adams, for example will be at the top and York will be at the bottom. Voters rarely scroll down or even see the last name, so must look for the R or D and check the first box!
I think that, depending on who is the Secretary of State, in each state may group their party at the top, by party and the other party down the list to take advantage of being at the top of the list.
So when the press and candidates speak of Free and Fair Elections, you’ll know that it’s a joke since they may be free, to the public, but fair! Ha, ha, ha.
