Ah, you have to love the hypocrisy of our political system, or at least that of some of the people in it. A classic example was the challenge to Lisa Murkowski's write in victory for Senator of Alaska. Her opponent, Joe Miller, actually made the case that it shouldn't be the intent of the voter that mattered when it came to counting the ballots. Huh?! This despite the fact that Alaska does have an “intent of the voter” measure whereby a ballot could still be counted even if a name is spelled incorrectly.
Oh, but Mr. Miller didn't just challenge votes where the voter mispelled a somewhat peculiar name, he even challenged votes where the voter had drawn a heart over the "i" instead of just dotting it, or wrote in clear script instead of printing, or put a comma between the first name and the last name or, heaven forbid, wrote the last name first followed by the first name.
At least Mr. Miller was honest enough to come right out and say that the intent of the voter doesn't matter. Most politicians still maintain that it does. Unless, of course, that intent runs counter to whatever it is that the politician wants.
Is it any wonder why people don't trust politicians?
On the bright side, Lisa Murkowski did prevail.
1 comment:
This reminds me of the tempest in a teapot that is "Dancing With The Stars". It seems that people think that the TeaBaggers are stuffing the ballots for Bristol Palin. It seems that the email/cellphone/website voting is supposed to have been flooded by conservative voters basically voting for Palin and not her chunky daughter.
I don't care one way or another.
I could care less about Palin's kids.
But the concept of the intent of a vote is very important. If the dancing show is about the talent of the dancer, then the votes should be about the talent of the dancer.
If the intent of the vote is about who the voter is voting for, it better damn matter.
Or we are screwed.
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