Vote! Vote! Vote!

There are different kinds of voting. There is our two-party system in which you have two real parties and a few “pretend� parties.

Then there is the one-party system. Communist countries like this one, as do small dictatorships. In this system you get to either vote or not vote for the only candidate. Write-ins and not voting are considered bad form.

Two-party candidates need to look reasonably attractive. In the one-party system, military backing is more important than good looks. Franco was a good example of this and he still exercises a strong influence on politics in Spain, although his work schedule has been severely curtailed since his death.

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Then there is the school budget vote. This bizarre system allows your local school district to put the exact same budget up for vote, up to three times until they either get the yes they want or impose the dreaded austerity budget. This can include punishments for wrong-thinking voters from having to supply your own pencils and paper to no buses or lunch program. Take that.

Now if you don’t like the results of the first vote, well too bad. They are the only ones that get the “do-over.� They never seem to get the message of frustration that the voters are trying to send, not so much voting this particular budget down as they are protesting the use of public funds for questionable purposes.

A system that was founded to provide survival skills to every child that was able to grasp them became a deluxe, pre-college package in which calculus and traveling sports teams somehow became more important than how to make correct change, balance a checkbook or understand interest rates on a loan. I know of at least one high school graduate who could not address an envelope correctly but could calculate the volume of a dodecahedron and knew what a post pattern in football meant.  

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Finally, there is the text/phone vote for your Dancing With The Stars favorites. You can vote multiple times, like in the old days. Standard text messaging rates apply. The phone companies hit the lottery on this one.

How do you know that they are actually counting your vote? The results are, after all, whatever the show says they are. We need a monitor. How about adapting this system to a performance review system for Congress? A poor review could result in dismissal, like happens to the rest of us in the real world.

Supposedly, there was a little old lady from New Hampshire who once said, “I never vote. It only encourages them.� Maybe so, but it sure feels good to put my two cents in.

Bill Abrams resides (and votes early and often) in Pine Plains.