My better half and I received our mail-in ballots a couple days ago, and I spent a large amount of time today doing the whole voting thing. I'm more than a little ashamed to say that this was the most informed I've ever been in casting my vote, mainly because I had the power of the internet at my disposal. Having the ability to research every proposal and candidate on the ballot was fan-friggin-tastic. I could look at who said what or felt in what way regarding a certain issue and vote accordingly, rather than trusting my memory for political rhetoric in a room full of people. When I'm in a room filled with people, my primary thought is how quickly I'm going to be out of that room and/or how to get out of the room even faster even if (or especially if) casualties are involved. Mandating a mail-in vote rather than a drive-up/walk-in vote is actually on the Arizona ballot, and it most assuredly received my vote. I'm foolish enough to believe that more people (not all, but more) would take the time to make an informed voting decision if they could vote at their convenience by mail.
Of course, the bad part of all this information is realizing that many candidates have lousy websites. Or worse, no website. Call me shallow, but if you can't put a decent website together to present your stance on the issues then that just tells me that you don't give a damn about the job. No vote for you, technophobe.
The best use of a website to sway my opinion went to one of the people running for Superintendent of Public Instruction. I don't react well to typos or grammatical errors at the best of times, but if you're trying to convince me that you should be in charge of education you damn well better check the text on your website! Lead by example, maybe?
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2 comments:
I'll call you shallow, if you really want me to, but lack of a website, on a candidate's part, influences my voting, too. (And so do websites with superfluous Java. I don't think I could bring myself to vote for anyone who uses superfluous Java. Gah! Or sites that only work in IE. God, I hate politics!)
I don't mind the superfluous Java, as I've got the nifty NoScript extension on Firefox. Cuts out the annoyances, and leaves me with fresh, minty text to read. Oh, and as for sites that only work in IE... I tend to just ignore them. Because I'm an elitist prick, I guess. :)
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