"Vote for Pedro"

Today is Election Day. Since I refuse to register as a resident of the state of Utah, I vote via Washington State absentee ballot. As far as I know, with an absentee ballot, you just have to make sure it’s in the mail by Election Day, so last night at about 11 pm I decided to finally sit down and iron out Heath’s Decision 2004.

“Four hours?!”

I figured, all I have to do is black-in a few multiple choice questions, then it’s off to bed, right? Nope! An hour and a half later I was starting to lose patience with all the seemingly identical non-partisan candidates for state judicial seats.

“Artoo, get us off this auto-pilot—it’s gonna get us both killed.”

One guy at work said that when he votes, he just punches a whole for all republican, then skips right to the initiatives and propositions. I don’t really trust either party enough to just say that they should rule the country. So I go through and analyze the candidates one by one. I read their stances, I determine how much they’re covering the facts, and I vote for the one that I feel is more honest or more sincere and outlines features to their plans for issues that I agree are important.

“Do you think people will vote for me?”
“Heck yes! I'd vote for you.”
“Like, what are my skills?”
“Well, you have a sweet bike. And you're really good at hooking up with chicks. Plus you're like the only guy at school who has a mustache.”

I don’t think that either party is evil—I’m pretty conservative, so I tend to identify more with the republican party, but I’m convinced that neither party is so infallible that I’d be willing to commit all my votes to it. Out of curiosity, when I was done voting I went back and tallied all my votes for each party and I was pretty well even: 6 democrats and 7 republicans.

“Vote for Summer.”
“Yeah, right! I'm not voting for her.”
“Then who you gonna vote for?”
“I'm voting for Pedro Sanchez, who do you think?!”

Since I’ve always thought both parties had their flaws, I’ve always considered it a good thing that the system is open to accepting candidates from other parties. I give those candidates an honest chance, but they always seem so weird. The Libertarians seem to think the country can be run without a government, and the Greens seem to think this is a corporation, not a country. I also recall seeing a few candidates from the Socialist party—I say if that’s your bag, either move to Cuba or join one of those polygamist colonies hiding in the mountain west.

“Hey Flaps, So what we’re gonna do?”
“I don't know, what'cha wanna do?”
“Look Flaps, first I say ‘what we’re gonna do?’ then you say ‘I don't know, what'cha wanna do?’ then I say ‘what we're gonna do?’ then you say ‘what'cha wanna do’ let's do something!”
“Ok. What'cha wanna do?”
“Now, don’t start that again!”

The initiatives are always interesting to me. “Do you want charter schools?” or “Should we raise local taxes to pay for light rail expansions?” I don’t know how I come to my decisions about those, because I don’t want higher taxes, but I do think rush hour commutes need some type of alleviation. On something like that I go back and forth in my mind for a while, but then come to the conclusion that I don’t want the expansion, because I predict that the freeways will always be used to capacity—meaning that if we extend the rail people will either not use it and drive, or they’ll use it—relieving the roadways temporarily, until out-of-staters realize that Seattle has great commute traffic and they all move up and restore the traffic ways to crowding and lead to overpopulation of the neighborhoods.

“We need?! Well what about you need?”
“I need? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hmm, I’m sure you don’t.”

There was one proposition that I must have spent 15 minutes trying to figure out. Something about raising taxes for something. I spent forever reading the for and the against on it and couldn’t understand either enough to know which to vote for. Then I read the last line before the voting boxes, “Should this proposition be on the 2005 ballot?” I was so relieved when I saw that—I figured, “sure, what the heck, at least that will give me another year to figure out what the heck they’re talking about!”

“What are you gonna do today, Napoleon?”
“Whatever I feel like I wanna do, gosh!”

I really do enjoy voting. It’s almost a religious experience for me. I hate the work involved in making an educated decision—it’s like a nights worth of homework—but I love the freedom to choose leaders by the “dictates of [my] own conscience” and if I vote that way, and if I can count on most of the American people to vote the same way, then I think this country is in good hands, despite the countless crooks or self-serving politicians who may weasel their way onto a ballot or into office.