Comments on: Don’t Blame Me: I Voted for Lizard People

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:36:25 +0000

From a hard hearted perspective, it’s a voting rights violation if somebody undertakes affirmative actions to prevent somebody who’s entitled to vote from voting.

But if somebody who’s entitled to vote picks up a ballot that says “fill in the circle completely”, and does anything else, like draw a circle around it, that’s just the wages of stupidity, and we’re better off if idiots don’t succeed when they attempt to vote.

I realize that’s heresy to people who view the function of voting as some kind of warm and fuzzy social participation. Nope, the function of voting is to pick officeholders and decide questions, and the ignorant and stupid are just noise.

Those people were instructed on how to make their votes count. If they chose not to do as they were instructed, their votes shouldn’t count.

Next we’ll be told that, if somebody gets lost on the way to the polls, we should make provision so that they can vote wherever they end up…

By: Mark Edwards

Mark Edwards — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:03:23 +0000

Interesting point, Howard.

From a purely political standpoint, I think it is significant that Franken got crossover support from traditionally Lizard People voters. Just as Ronald Reagan tapped into a demographic that became known as ‘Reagan Democrats,’ might we one day speak of ‘Franken Lizard People,’ or perhaps simply ‘FrankenLizards’?

By: Howard Wasserman

Howard Wasserman — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:27:07 +0000

Of course, Lizard People is not (are not?) eligible to serve as both President and Senator, since that would violate the Incompatibility Clause. And if Lizard People were to win the presidency, what would that do the theory of the unitary executive?

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:21:30 +0000

Seems to me that where a box it ticked and a write-in is also included, then the voter is saying, “I’m voting for the guy I ticked, but if the person I wrote-in had actually been on the ballot then I’d have voted for him instead”.

By: Mark Edwards

Mark Edwards — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:03:52 +0000

Forgive me for being the first to comment on my own post, but I just noticed something interesting about the lizard people ballot.

Note that the voter wrote in lizard people for both President and Senate, but only voted for them for President. He voted for Franken over lizard people for Senate, although he obviously felt lizard people should be on the ballot for that office as well. And note that in this election, Franken will gladly take the vote if he can get it.