!! GUNS & BALLOTS !! — A WAKE-UP CALL

Photo by Jubre2016, Wikimedia Commons (fair use)

Q:  What’s more slimy than a salamander, and more slippery than a one-eyed eel after coitus? Answer: A Gerrymander! 

Many voters know that politicians from both sides of the aisle own the game simply because they know where you store your ballot, which is to say those slippery pols know where you live, and which  party you joined when you registered to vote.   Both sides want to keep it this way so they can rig the primaries by redesigning the districts after each census — by drawing congressional districts to favor one party over another — first done in Massachusetts by a pol named Mr Gerry, which district was said to look like a salamander.  And most voters feel powerless to do anything about these unbalanced districts.  But wait!

Few voters recognize that the smoky backrooms of the party bosses are where elections are decided.  Nobody can run for office on “their” ticket without kissing their ring.  If you were to be allowed onto the primary ballot, you owe them! And they will extract repayment, as this is how the parties control us..

Voters in a few states have been alert enough to prevent this.  How?  They’ve designed their voter-registration and primary balloting so that, once registered, any voter can show up on primary day and ask for a ballot for whichever party has the most interesting nominations. This removes predictability from the gameboys’ tool chest.

If un-affiliated registration became the law in your state, it would mean that your predictability can no longer be gamed by either party, simply by their knowing where you live, when it comes time to redraw districts, meaning they can no longer Gerrymander effectively, after each census. But it would take a ground-swell of citizen action — such as a public referendum demanding a chance to vote on a change of rules, for voters to retake ownership of the election franchise.  Got grit?  Call for a referendum!  Launch a petition drive.

So, what does this post have to do with guns?  If you don’t want the gummit to know that you own guns, shouldn’t we all be just as private about where we store our ballots?  He who snoozes, loses, kids!  WE the People need to take back our power.  We are the gummit, dammit!