Voting by Association

Having already cast my own ballot in early voting here in Texas, I've been thinking about ways to improve making our voices heard.

I know this varies from district to district, but here in Houston, there were a lot of down ballot elections for people I've never heard of. Despite efforts to find out what races were on my ballot two months ago, I was still surprised to see how many completely unknown candidates there were on it.

Who has time for all that research? A friend calls it "advanced citizenship." I call it a pain in my hairy patootie.

Looking at social media and online retailers, however, I think there's a better way than taking time out of my busy life to read up on people I don't believe anyway.

We all get friend suggestions on Facebook, LinkedIn networking recommendations, Twitter nudges for who to follow. All these are based upon who we already know, who we already network with, who we already follow. Amazon is always telling us, "people who read this book also read this other book."

How hard would it be to set up our voting machines to give us similar guidance to cut out all that reading and googling and general paying attention?

Basically, how I see this working is that you make your choice about a big election or two, and based on that, the computer offers suggestions down the line.

"People who voted for that presidential candidate also voted for this county clerk."

Or, if we want it to give more reasons or even options, it could possibly offer choices like:

"We see you voted for Presidential Candidate A. If you are buying Presidential Candidate A's lines about Issue A, B, and D, you may also believe that County Official Candidate C has a chance of changing anything. If you are voting Presidential Candidate A because of outlandish promises X, Y, and Z, then you're likely gullible enough for County Official Candidate D."

See how easy this would be?

Okay, maybe it would take a wee bit longer, but isn't a few more minutes in the voting booth worth the feeling that we actually considered each candidate? Isn't voting for someone you're unlikely to ever understand exactly what they do anyway worth the same consideration as your next purchase on Amazon?

Sure, you can just go vote straight party ticket and be done in 60 seconds because that at least gives you the feeling you're participating in democracy and maybe that's enough. Most of the time.

But if you want to get a little extra surge of pride in how you care about your right as a citizen . . . well, I think you should forward this idea to your congress person.

Or whoever it would be that can make this change in voting procedures.