Seeing the Round Corners
HEADS UP, the new day for Seeing the Round Corners “GOING LIVE” is Tuesday each week.
July 28, 2020
Mail ballots seems to be here to stay. For the past few years, this writer has deemed voter responsibility and voters being informed about candidates so important, a column from the archives appears before each election. With early voting just around the corner, please take heart and review the column – then become informed as never before in your life.
These are the most difficult times in our lives, and our country is being ripped apart by those who would like to destroy it.
DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT? . . . August 2, 2010
With the 2010 primary election only a few days away, it seems appropriate to pen a few words about voting in elections – what it means if you don’t vote, and yes, what it means if you do; i.e., besides selecting the winner, be it the lesser of two evils.
Humanbeings (HBs) are a unique creation, regardless of who you the voter believes is the creator. Most HBs unwillingly find themselves being manipulated during election years. We have only to look at this year, a year of supposed recovery “from the worst recession since the great depression.” Oh how that term has worn thin with so many people!
Far too often voters put forth little or no effort in becoming informed about all the candidates before going to the polls or marking that mail-in ballot. The incumbent has had a full term to get their name before the public, and yes, always at taxpayer expense.
Think! The Notice of Valuation has the county assessor’s name on it; the numerous items relating to motor vehicle, elections and property recordings sent to residents by the county clerk and recorder; the tax bill sent to property owners by the county treasurer – all have the office holder’s name. Never are those pieces of official mail sent out without the officer holder’s name before the official county office, whether it be the assessor, clerk and recorder or treasurer. By re-election time, that elected official, a/k/a the incumbent, has had at least four years of free advertising at taxpayer expense, and sometimes multiple terms.
How often have you the reader heard a voter actually admit to voting for someone whose sign they saw on the way to the polls, if they were not familiar with the candidates, or for other various and sundry lame reasons? Far too often this writer has heard that “refrain”!!! That is how voters end up with incompetent incumbents back in office far too often, and incumbents count on this scenario. It is also the reason so many voters can be manipulated by those last-minute smear ads televised for mere propaganda purposes. In county level elections, the propaganda is spread by gossip mongering because voters simply do not take the time to become informed, or end up relying on hearsay/second hand information from a neighbor, friend or relative.
When you the voter go to vote, consider these points:
- By voting if you are not informed about the candidates running, you still give your consent to those elected officials to act on your behalf;
- Not voting withholds consent, but by that act, you must still accept the outcome of the election; and
- Carl Watner made this statement in an anthology about the Dissenting Electorate: “Truth does not depend upon a majority vote.”
Far too many voters do not bother to vote in the primary election. That failure allows those who do vote to select the candidates you have to choose from in the November General Election. Think about that! Being left with a choice between the lesser of two evils still means they are evil.
Voters in Gilpin County have the unusual experience this election of having choices in the Republican Primary for the Clerk and Recorder race, for Sheriff and for District 2 Commissioner. The Democratic Primary finds a single candidate in each of those races.
The reader's comments or questions are always welcome. E-mail me at doris@dorisbeaver.com.