I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m getting rather fed up with all the texts, phone calls, flyers and visits bombarding us right now.
Every single day I get at least a handful of texts and a stack of flyers in the mail. We’ve had multiple phone calls and visits from people trying to do surveys or straight up extolling the virtues of their candidate most weeks. We are being blitzed with it.
Granted, it is such an extreme amount because there are six adults registered as voters at our residence. Never mind that two of those no longer live here. And my daughter says she’s still getting texts addressed to my oldest daughter about her voting options. My daughter who hasn’t had this as her legal address for about a decade, and it’s been longer than that since she gave her old phone, and number, to her little sister.
But seriously, why would any one household need two or three copies of the exact same flyer mailed to their house at least weekly for two months. I’m not kidding. I glance through the stack of mail we get each and every day and I’ll find duplicate flyers. One or more will be addressed to a specific voter while another one will be addressed to “Current Resident”. A few have been addressed to both my second born (who no longer lives here) and my third born (who does). (Oddly enough, those are the only two that are ever combined.)
Though, that is not my point.
My point is that we don’t need reminders every single day, from multiple sources that it is an election year or that we need to place our vote. Let alone all the daily reminders of who exactly is running for which positions.
I also detest how these flyers are worded. I kid you not when I say that most of them are diatribes against their opponents that say very little about the candidates themselves. I saw one were it went into detail listing all the legal issues one opponent had, plus one legal problem another one had yet did not say a single thing about the candidate the flyer was from.
Guess which candidate I refused to vote for.
If all you can do is sling mud at your opponents and not bother to tell me your platform then you are not getting my vote even if you are the most experienced and sensible candidate.
Unfortunately, it appears that most people running for an elected office of any kind seem to think that the only way to get votes is to sling mud. I don’t think we’ve received a single flyer that only stated the candidate’s viewpoint and platform.
I think the mud slinging is what I’m most sick of.
Why can’t we have candidates who only state their platforms and why they personally are the qualified for the position? Why do we have to have every candidate, even for the local city and county positions, slinging mud instead of stating their own qualifications?
I can remember the very first election I was qualified to vote in.
There were five registered voters in our household. There were no flyers in our mail every single day. There were no constant phone calls about voting. There were ads on TV and in the local papers, but they were not overwhelming and most of them simply stated their own platform. (I do remember a few that were slinging mud, and they irritated me then too.)
I’ve also lived in this house for nearly 20 years. Granted, only the last 16 years have had more than my husband and I as registered voters in this house, but I still don’t remember the complete blizzard of flyers in previous election years.
This constant bombardment and all this negativity is not pleasant and can completely turn people off of the whole process of voting for who will be running our government for the next few years. I know it’s turning me off.
Election years should be only about providing accurate information on the platforms and qualifications of the candidates and should never be about candidates throwing accusations and digging up dirt on their opponents.
If I could craft the perfect election year the candidates for any and all offices would be given specific dates, times and places where they could address the voting population with who they are and what their platform is. I would also censor any attempts at slinging mud including not allowing any debates since that would present opportunities for candidates to ridicule their opponents.
Basically, I’m just sick and tired of the negativity. Why can’t this process be more civilized?
I can’t wait for this to all be over next week.
Smile. Make the day a brighter day.
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