Day 90/183: Local Voters’ Pamphlet, such fun

[nanila]

It’s that time again! Yes, the time when [my USian state] sends out its election materials and paper ballots to postal voters, for the primary elections taking place in August. I love the voter pamphlet and read it avidly from cover to cover, even for the districts I'm not eligible to vote in, because every chancer under the sun has popped their head up to run for office. Since “state candidate statements are printed exactly as submitted to the [redacted] State Secretary of State’s Office,” without censorship, correction, verification or editing, some of their statements are A M A Z I N G. Not the established politicians’ ones, of course, those are formulaic and boring. But the chancers are great. And bonkers.

Here is a selection of my favourite offerings.

The "Setting the bar low" award

Community Service: I've never been to jail.

The "I wanted to laugh at the rest of this but it turned out to be fucking tragic" award

Community Service: Despite personal problems, I have managed to avoid going to Court, except for driving without insurance. To be fair, I was living in the car at the time…

The "Hard pass based on the fewest words" award

Statement: Stop [City] / King Fascism with idiotic face!

This was repeated for several paragraphs, with an exhortation to “vote Trump” at the end. NOPE.

The "Really has it in for the rodents, wtf" award

Statement: De-list the pocket gopher, it’s not endangered. End this pocket gopher nonsense.

There’s pocket gopher nonsense going on? Do tell. Sadly, they don’t elaborate.

The "5G conspiracy" award

Statement: If elected, I will direct an independent, state-funded study of the effects of 5G cell-phone towers upon living things. My research indicates that this radiation is killing trees, birds, honey bees, human life.

This person is also against a load of stuff: chemtrails, bio-mass use for electricity, wind power, solar power, coal trains, eugenics, Satan, off-shore drilling...and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’s unclear what they’d do about any of it other than vigorously opposing it, though. I’d particularly like to know what they plan to do to fight Satan whilst in office. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The "This started out OK if a little extreme, AND THEN" award

Statement [no other information was submitted]: I am running as a spokesperson for the anti-apartheid / reparations-now movement. My issues and solutions: 1) Raise awareness that [redacted] State is Native American land, and should be returned. Colonialism is no longer acceptable. 2) The current Governor’s biggest mistake is turning [City’s] building over to proven historial Negro vampire criminals.

I don’t expect to see any of these candidate statements in the November election, but if they do appear on the ballot then things have got even worse than I imagined. USian readers, do you have any choice tidbits from your state voter pamphlets? Please share them in the comments if you do!

Comments

[ankaret]

it sounds like the subplot to a bad teen drama from the 90s.

Yes. I want the vampire to be 'There were slave auctions in that building, reparations now' and the administration to be '... yeah, fair, you want the building so you can pull it down or start a museum of black history or whatever? Take it' while somewhere in the foreground the protagonists are angsting and not telling each other stuff.

[liseuse]

And eventually when the protagonists stop having Romance Drama they clue in to the fact that the building is now a very well-run and suspiciously well funded museum and Go Investigating! Only to find that the vampires made a load of money from illegal alcohol sales during Prohibition but had the excellent plan of saving most of it, and are now funding the museum and a ton of arts programmes via the wonders of compound interest.

All reviews will make note of the fact that viewers really wanted to spend more plot time with the vampires, but alas they were subject to the woes of high school algebra and a tedious "will they won't they go to the prom together" plot.

[ankaret]

The fandom is divided between

a) people writing solely about the vampires
b) people writing slash about random minor white characters from the Prohibition flashback
c) people writing vampire / teenage protagonist coffee shop AUs
d) one lone obsessive who draws people in with his strong views on Native American reparations but then turns out to have a headcanon featuring an unpopular kink which he posts everywhere in which, for no particular reason, one of the main cast is a were-pocket-gopher.

All of these cause confusion in people who start watching the show because of the fic, though (b) and (d) more so.

[liseuse]

There are also some museum professionals in the fandom who keep trying to work out how to use the Very Well Run and Funded Museum as an example for their bosses and funding bodies but can't find a way without identifying themselves as a person who watches the otherwise terrible show. Some of them are in Category A because they really really want to go and work at that museum and this seems the only feasible option.

[brainwane]

I love ALL of this and have a hankering to nominate it for Yuletide.

[liseuse]

Hee! It amused me deeply!

[nanila]

This thread wins the comments section. *wild applause*

[liseuse]

*takes a bow*