Eric Piehl comments on ☑ voting informed in every election

Democracy

Around the years 1150 ^[1] to 1550 ^[2] , or thereabouts ^[3] , the Haudenosaunee Peoples decided to end ongoing fighting between their five constituent nations.

To stop the fighting, they agreed to bury their weapons, or a single symbolic weapon, under the Tree of Peace — a large tree in the area — an ◼︎ eastern (or northern) white pine  Pinus strobus.

To preserve the peace, they created the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy:

• a dem­o­crat­ic system of gov­ern­ment;  with a
• written constitution;
• amendable;  controlled by
• separate branches of gov­ern­ment, and
• balance of power.

A system of government that worked so well that:

• 237 ^[2] to 637 ^[1] years later, and
• 237 years ago,

the newly-birthed 🇺🇸 USA copied/​adapted this system, with all of the attributes above, for its form of gov­ern­ment, ^[4] which it describes in its written constitution, later amended (as of this writing) 27 times.

Now needing a few election reforms, some of which I list in the later entries in Step 7 ↓ below.

Why vote?

About      👥︎ : 👤︎  2 people in 3, alive in the world today, live in an autocracy. ^[5]

Meaning  👤︎ : 👥︎  1 person in 3 lives in a democracy. ^[5]

Was over 👤︎ : 👤︎  1 person in 2 for a while, but times have been tough in the decade after 2016. ^[5]

^[5]  "How Many People Live in a Political Democracy Today?" accessed 2023-10-13.

Let us build a 🌐︎ world as if 👪︎👥︎ people really matter.

If you are fortunate enough to live in a full or electoral democracy, please continue …

Many elections are won or lost by less than one or two percent; some by only a few tens or hundreds of votes.  It happens every election cycle.  Vote to make a change, or to keep things the same.  When we vote, we do make a difference.  Not perfect, but better.

Or vote to give yourself a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Watch the video ↖ above or to left.  For full effect, select the video image, then icons YouTube (if present), ⏯︎ ⊠ Skip Ads (if present), ㏄ captions (if you wish), ⛶ full­screen, and ▶︎ Play.   More  ▶︎  videos from them!

Women weren't given the right to vote — they fought for it!   For three generations, apparently.  Remember that as your next election nears.

People of color are still fighting for their voting rights.

👥︎ Generation-Y and Generation-Z young people have far more at stake than us boomers.  We will help you while we can, but after we are gone, the future is up to you.

If you are Gen-Y or Gen-Z, or a 🕶 cool Boomer who understands urban symbology, please see Eminem explicit video Mosh ↗ above or to right, with support by a  ▶︎  lyrics version.   Written 20 years ago, it still speaks to us today.

For full effect, select the video image or link button, then icons YouTube (if present), ⏯︎ ⊠ Skip Ads (if present), ㏄ captions (if you wish), ⛶ full­screen, and ▶︎ Play.

Fans of Hamilton:  An American Musical :

Rise up.    — John Laurens and ensemble

I wanna be in the room where it happens.    — Aaron Burr

I am not throwing away my shot!    — Alexander Hamilton

Must be nice to have Washington [DC, and your state and local gov­ern­ments?] on your side.    — Aaron Burr

Don't wait for it like Aaron Burr.

History has its eyes on you.    — George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and ensemble

This webpage provides some resources, to help you, with minimum work, VOTE:

• In every election — in my precinct, the primary elections are where the real decisions are made.
• In every race — including those down-ballot races:  Initiatives, judgeships and Drain Commissioner!

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

    —  ▶︎  🔊︎ Song Freewill, by band Rush.
1980-01-14.   For full effect, select the video link button, then icons YouTube (if present), ⏯︎ ⊠ Skip Ads (if present), ㏄ captions (if you wish), ⛶ full­screen, and ▶︎ Play.

Let's get started!

Step 2:  How to vote

You Can Vote Safely In-Person Despite Coronavirus.  Here's How.  Consumer Reports.  October 10, 2020.

📅︎ A month before Election Day (or two or three) (now if you don't know when that might be), …

While you are printing stuff, if you are going to ☑👤︎👥︎ vote in-person, and think you might run into ☑🛂︎ trouble while voting, please 📄︎ print anything you might need from the 🛂︎ trouble section ↓ below.

As it gets closer to time to vote, you will use your sample ballot to …

Step 4:  ☑ Vote!

☑ Vote when, where and how you found out back in Step 2, using the information you found out back in Step 3.

If your jurisdiction has 👥︎📫︎☑ universal mail-in voting or you wish to use 📫︎☑ absentee voting, prevent the most important threats to your vote not being counted:

1. Mark your ballot as you intended back in Step 3, following the instructions provided.  In my jurisdiction, this includes:
     •  using a ✎✎ blue or black pen,
     •  filling in ⬮⬮ the bubble completely.
2. If instructed to by your jurisdiction, place your ballot inside the inner security envelope / security sleeve.
   In some jurisdictions, with the ballot tab sticking out.
   Not doing this risks having a naked ballot.
   Then place this in your outer return envelope / declaration envelope …
3. ☑ Verify that you signed your name exactly as when you Registered.   ◀Most common reason ballots are rejected!
   May be the same as on your 🪪 Driver's License.
   May be consistent with your name in your ballot's address label.
   Put on today's date — not your birthday!
   Some jurisdictions require a witness signature!
   Some jurisdictions allow you to include a 📱︎☎ phone number and/or 📧︎ email address, for them to contact you if your ballot has a problem.  [Sounds like a good idea to me.]
4. Return your ballot to the polls before your jurisdiction's deadline.  ◀Second-most common reason ballots are rejected!
   In my jurisdiction, you can do this by:
     •  ☑👤︎👥︎ In-person at the same clerk desk.
     •  ☑✉📮︎ In a secure dropbox, inside or outside your clerk's office.  And in Washington State, outside each library!
     •  ☑✉📫︎ By mail.  If needed, apply postage to outer return envelope / declaration envelope.  In my jurisdiction, I believe it has to be received by the election board on or before Election Day — USPS says to mail 7 days before.

If you mess up, all jurisdictions have a process where they will spoil your ballot and issue you a new ballot — see your Clerk!

Most jurisdictions also have a website where you can check on the status of your vote:

• whether and when your request was received,
• whether and when your ballot was sent to you, and
• whether and when your ballot was received!

[All three steps worked for us in 2020 September and October!]


If you are worried about the 📫︎ US mail:

• read Election Mail by USPS,
  
• sign up for USPS Informed Delivery, and
• consider eliminating a mail step or two …

In 2020-August, we filled out our absentee ballot applications at home, and I turned them in at our Township Hall.  (Your Clerk might be in your City Hall.)  Our Township Clerk said they would mail out our ballots as soon as they got them, in a month.  Then we can return our ballots (up to 45 days before the election) either:

• ☑👤︎👥︎ in-person at the same clerk desk,
• ☑✉📮︎ in a secure dropbox outside, or
• ☑✉📫︎ by mail.

On my way out, I checked the 📮︎ dropbox — sturdy, steel, bolted well to the sidewalk.  Any of these options seem fine.  [And in October, they added another secure dropbox in the lobby, too!]

Since our Township Hall is convenient to our home, and we can easily travel there during business hours, we dropped off our ballots at the clerk's office.  And used the opportunity for a walk downtown in the sun.  Lovely!


"The hidden science of mail-in voting."  PBS Nova Now.  Thursday, August 27, 2020. or its 🔊︎ audio

If ☑👤︎👥︎ voting in-person, 📅︎ early or on Election Day:

• Take your 📝︎ marked-up sample ballot (from back in Step 3 ), and fold it into your pocket.
  Yes, it is legal to bring this paper into the voting booth with you — your 🛂︎ poll workers may have rules against using a 📱︎ phone in the voting booth.
• If you think you might run into ☑🛂︎ trouble while voting, please 📄︎ print anything you might need from the 🛂︎ trouble section ↓ below.
• If you have 🪪 gov­ern­ment-issued photo id, bring it — that is simpler.
  If you do not have such id, vote anyway.  Just be prepared for 🛂︎ poll workers to provide you a provisional ballot — hold them to it — it is your right to vote in this manner.
• When you get to the polling place, if presented with several precincts and you don't know your precinct number, ask a friendly poll worker (probably one of your neighbors), or turn around — there probably is a 🗺 precinct map posted on a wall or table nearby.
• When you get into the ballot booth, unfold your 📝︎ marked-up sample ballot, and use it as a guide to cast your ballot quickly and accurately.
  Including all those down-ballot races:  initiatives, judgeships and Drain Commissioner!

If any ☑🛂︎ trouble while voting, in the 🇺🇸 USA, contact the:

• US Department of Justice Voting Rights Hotline,  📱︎☎ 1-800-253-3931
  or
• ACLU Election Protection Hotline:
    ◦  in English  📱︎☎ 1-866-OUR-VOTE or send an 📱︎💬︎ SMS text "OUR VOTE" to 97779,
    ◦  en Español/English  📱︎☎ 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA
    ◦  in Arabic/English      📱︎☎ 1-844-418-1682  بالعربية or 📱︎☎ 1-844-YALLA-US  بالعربية
    ◦  🌏︎ Asian languages Bengali বাংলা, Chinese 中文, English, Hindi, Korean 한국어, Tagalog, Urdu ودرأ, and Vietnamese Tiếng Việt,  📱︎☎ 1-888-API-VOTE
    ◦  American Sign Language ASL  ▶︎  video call,  📱︎💻︎ 1-301-818-VOTE
  or
• Michigan Bureau of Elections.  📱︎☎ 1-517-373-2540

    — 🇺🇸 ACLU series Know Your Rights Voter Intimidation
      ( Michigan ACLU Know Your Voting Rights in English, Spanish en Español, in Arabic  بالعربية ), Vote.org Election Protection, and Georgetown Law's fact sheet, and state[?] fact sheets, on voter-intimidation laws. 

If you see something, say something!

If you expect 🛂︎ police contact, what to do with your electronics.  (page 25)

After you vote:

• Give yourself a pat on the back for exercising your sacred civic duty.  Thank you for helping save the world!
• Save your 📝︎ marked-up sample ballot for a day or two, to see if you are a leader or a follower.
  Perhaps using your local media or 📰︎ newspaper , or other medium (e.g., Michigan election reporting > 16 counties + city of Detroit > can drill into results for your city or twp, and precinct).
  Then ♻︎ recycle!

Step 6:  Anytime, contact your elected officials

Now that you've helped vote in better public servants, keep in mind that they are merely better, not perfect.   Therefore, you will have to do it all over again, for the next election cycle.  But until then, your elected officials should be closer to your side, or at least more educable …

6.2  Learn how to 👂︎ listen to your public servants

Learn how to 👂︎ listen, understand, and think critically, including:

• logical fallacies,
• rhetoric ( ▶︎  video Rhetoric is not just Rhetorical), and
• logic.

7.2  [Straightforward]  Become a poll worker

If you:

• want a strong democracy, and/or
• want to provide some oversight,

then become a poll worker.

Two of my relatives do this.  One new in 2022;  another has been doing it most of her life!

In Michigan, Michigan Voter Information Center > link Become a poll worker.

7.4  [Straightforward]  Verifiable voting systems

If your jurisdiction votes with a system that does not provide:

• a permanent human-readable record of your vote (e.g., on 📝︎ paper),
• that you, the voter, yourself ☑ verified (e.g., because you marked that paper yourself with a pen),

then work to get your jurisdiction to get a system that does meet these criteria, for your very next election!

This will make sense if you have seen the movie Terminator …

Keep it Simple,
  Keep it Dumb,
Or else you'll end up
  under Skynet's Thumb.

    — Isaak Arthur  ▶︎  video Terrifying Aliens, at 15m51s.

7.6  [Medium]  📫︎ Mail-in Voting, 📅︎ Early Voting, and Automatic Voter Registration AVR

If you want to increase voter participation, especially:

• in mid-term elections (governors and mayors decided here!),
  
• in primary elections   (many races actually decided here!),
  
• in down-ballot races  (the new generation of leaders decided here!), and
  
• during local/​regional/​🌎︎🌏︎🌍︎ global emergencies[!],

then work to get your jurisdiction to adopt:

• 📫︎☑ Mail-in Voting aka postal voting;
• 👤︎📅︎☑ Early Voting aka pre-poll voting or advance polling (I love voting when convenient, feeding my ballot into the reader, knowing that my ballot was valid and accepted);  and
• Automatic Voter Registration AVR, or Same-Day voter Registration SDR aka Election Day voter Registration EDR.

7.8  [Hard]  Nonpartisan redistricting versus 🐍︎ gerrymandering

If you:

• don't like having your general election results predetermined in the primary,
• don't like the candidate choices you have been given,
• want candidates to reach out to you,

then work to get your jurisdiction to adopt nonpartisan redistricting — an end to 🐍︎ gerrymandering "Geometry versus Gerrymandering."  Scientific American.  November 2018. (Michigan Radio story) (Michigan organization Voters Not Politicians).

For full effect, view the videos ↗ above or to right by selecting a video image, then icons YouTube (if present), ⏯︎ ⊠ Skip Ads (if present), ㏄ captions (if you wish), ⛶ full­screen, and ▶︎ Play.

Nonpartisan redistricting is Solution 3 in the Gehl-Porter election-reform trifecta, as listed in radio podcast Freakonomics episode 356 at 46m11s 🔊︎ audio

Just after our first-ever 2020–2021 Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission MICRC released their 🗺 new district maps, a 👀︎ quick look makes me think for:

• US House of Representatives, the new maps look about as fair as they can be.
• State House and Senate, the new maps look about 90% better that what we had before.

Fix the remaining 10%?  Good enough until the next round of redistricting in 2030–2031?  Declare victory for the whole Proposal 2 (18-2) (182) process?

7.10  [Hardest]  Align political boundaries with watersheds

If you:

• want to make it easier for your communities to protect your water and soil,

then work to align political boundaries with watershed boundaries.

(At least for jurisdictions of water and land management, as envisioned as "watershed commonwealths" by John Wesley Powell back in 1890!)

For example, using 🇺🇸 USA EPA 🗺 map on ArcGIS > icon ⊞ Select a Basemap > map USGS National Map, I would live in the:

• neighborhood of Little Carl Creek,
• county of Lower Grand, and
• state or nation of Lawrencia.

(In 🇺🇸 USA, watersheds and streams are mapped and described by an 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code HUC code.)

Or by bioregion.

Or break up the USA by the way native peoples did.  Native peoples often used natural boundaries for deciding boundaries between peoples.

Or break up the USA by weather patterns, one effort shown ↗ above or to far right.

For a deep dive into this subject, watch video The Problem With the USA's Borders, ↗ above or to right, particularly the middle third.  For full effect, select the video image, then icons YouTube (if present), ⏯︎ ⊠ Skip Ads (if present), ㏄ captions (if you wish), ⛶ full­screen, and ▶︎ Play.

Navigate to pages that link here

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