"Vote for Voting" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Vote for Voting

I’m a little confused with all this continuing palaver about elections, I don’t know who’s voting where, when or for whom. For instance, we just had this massive disappointment of an election here, and while everyone was wowing about how great it was that so many people turned out, in truth only 55% of those who were eligible bothered to cast ballots in what was considered one of the most important elections in our history.

Many of them probably thought that their vote wouldn’t count, or at least that’s what they said. Shame on them. Tens of thousands of people who take seriously their citizenship in the world’s pioneering democratic society stood in lines for hours waiting to cast a ballot. This was because corrupt elections officials did everything they could but burn down the schoolhouse to discourage people from voting. It doesn’t get much more unAmerican than that.

But our election isn’t on the front page anymore. Attention for the past couple of weeks has been focused on the Ukraine, where the people took to the streets to protest the stuffing of ballot boxes and essentially closed down the government until their courts stood up to the challenge of morally-bankrupt incumbent government officials and ordered a new vote. That was almost not enough. The opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, was poisoned with dioxin.

Another curious note about this election. The U.S., along with the rest of the civilized world, supported Yuschenko, who is viewed as a liberal. We apparently poured $65 million into getting him elected. Russia opposed him. Now relations with Putin’s government have soured. Do we really have a direction in our foreign policy?

In other election news, Iraq is supposed to have their election at the end of January. A lot of people don’t think that would be a good idea. Polling places would probably be targeted by the psycho-rebels and people would rather not vote than be blown up.

The Palestinians are also planning to vote on a new leader. It should be easier now that jailed terrorist Marwan Barghouthi pulled out of the running, for the second time. But things there are also blowing up. In one of the worst attacks since Arafat died, terrorists detonated a ton of explosives in a tunnel under an Israeli military base in Gaza Sunday killing four soldiers and wounding a dozen.

It appears that there are some kinks to be worked out in the voting process.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.