Hello. Today when I voted in New York state,
the most important race was the NY governor race, appropriately
in leftmost ballot column.
Going down that column, the libertarian candidate Larry Sharpe,
was NOT on the ballot, not in any of the 9 slots in the
column.
Stephanie Miner, running independent, was however,
falsely listed in the "libertarian" row of the ballot in that
column.
This certainly hurt Miner because voters were thus-deceived into
thinking she was a "libertarian" entirely contrary both to the truth
and to what she'd been saying all along. Given this "official proof"
Miner was a liar, they wouldn't vote for her.
It also certainly hurt Sharpe because he wasn't there to
get your vote AT ALL, but he should have been,
What is the explanation?? Finally, I figured it out, after getting some
help. See, in the SECOND column of the ballot, which you didn't
even realize existed because its top 8 entries all were blank...
if you go all the way way down to the bottom... suddenly it
stops being blank and Larry Sharpe is there. Most voters
would never even notice that column even was a column,
and so they'd never vote Sharpe.
And this all was quite odd because meanwhile Andrew Cuomo (dem)
running for re-election, was listed FOUR TIMES in the first column.
Just so you couldn't possibly fail to vote for him - you could vote four
different ways for Cuomo in those 9 slots.
I mean, this is just GRATUITOUS ASSHOLERY.
Think about it. It was not enough that Cuomo is vastly favored to
be re-elected and has a huge $$$ warchest and is telling lies every time
he debates (but usually refusing to debate). No. He also
has to make his state give him FOUR different ballot slots.
Not one. Four. And, he has to screw BOTH Miner AND Sharpe
by putting them on the ballot in the manner I described guaranteed to
confuse most voters and hurt both of them.
And presumably this was intentionally done to try to make
both Miner and Sharpe not only lose, but lose so badly that their
parties would be off ballot next election.
I think it is an outrage. There was absolutely no legitimate excuse
for this behavior by New York State, and this is 100% not the sort of
unbiased umpire we want on charge of election ballot-printing etc.
--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)