Reach Out and Touch the Electorate

People, another election day is upon us this August. No, I'm not campaigning this term, but I cannot tell you how important it is to get out and vote. I think there is a lot of frustration out there and I urge you to seek out information about your candidates and pick the lesser of the evils as many of us do.

Even if you hate everyone running, vote yourself as a write-in candidate. Can you imagine the stories if we had the highest voter turnout in the County and elected NONE of the candidates? Wouldn't it be great if we could select "None of These" on a ballot just like those annoying tests in high school? Sadly, gone are the hanging chads and pregnant chads.

The County recently rolled out TWO electronic voting machines for this election and they are supposed to be pretty easy. See a demo here.

Now why are there TWO machines? I applaud the County for making voting more accessible to more voters, but why confuse them with two machines? I have a friend who says "a camel is a horse designed by committee" and I'm wondering if we citizens bought a camel. Further, there are supposed to be events at which citizens can see the machines before the elections. So far, the County has no dates posted on the site.

The ACBA talked about having the machines at Affton Days in September. This is a great idea, but that's too late for the August elections. I'd still like to set up some Affton Days issues on the machines and get the citizens' input. Think of the fun we could have with these at Affton Days!!:

"What should be Affton's Official Sno-Cone Flavor? ---Blueberry or Tiger Blood"
"Which Afftonian Should Be Placed in the Dunking Booth from 3pm-4pm?"
"Who should be winner of today's 'Best Mullet' competition?"
"Do you like the idea of free, family movie nights in Mathilda Park?"

Hey, I think I'm on to something good here.