THE GUILELESS VOTER

This is NOT about a candidate or a political party. Please read.

Voters in this country have the advantage of access to lots of information in an open society.

We also have the disadvantage of having to make an effort to being informed. We have many choices that are considered sources of information but we have to wend our way through the deception and sort it out for ourselves. We can’t always be sure if someone is lying about themselves or someone else, or if we have been fooled by their image or reputation.

None of us is immune to being misled.

We all have biases, too, which further complicates it.

Please fact-check, not only recent comments but the history of the candidates. It only takes a few minutes.  We have access to the facts. Use it!

Personally, I don’t go to the websites set up by a campaign, or at least not until I check facts, both historical and current. Then I *might* go to their web sites to see their claims and then I try to verify those claims, or find out more about organizations with which they are affiliated.

I have been amazed at how often I still don’t know something about a person or organization. Imagine how much less I’d know if I did not even try.

Another pitfall is voting for a person based on one issue. It is not a smart way to vote. There is an actual example from our history. One candidate was against abortion when much of the country was also against it. He won by a landslide. He also turned out to be one of our worst presidents, having committed actual crimes.

Don’t vote based on one issue. Our method of campaigning is too cumbersome and misleading so we might miss a good person for that office based on disagreeing on that issue.

You might view this as a lot of work but it really does not take long. It’s well worth it because that person will be in office for a long time – TOO long if we are wrong.

None of us have guarantees but without due diligence, we have only ourselves to blame if we don’t research these matters. It can cause great harm to us and to our country.