Election Time

There’s a gen­er­al elec­tion com­ing up in town, mean­ing that signs adorn lawns and medi­ans every­where you look, cov­ered with pithy say­ings like “It’s Time for a Change!” and “Vote [NAME GOES HERE] for [POSITION GOES HERE]”.

Back when I lived in res­i­dence, in my sal­ad days at the uni­ver­si­ty, there was a bylaw on the books that I rather liked. In an elec­tion, any can­di­date whose signs were still up by mid­night on the night before the vote was dis­qual­i­fied. Now there was a lot about rez elec­tions that I would­n’t want to car­ry over into the realm of–shall we say–grown-up pol­i­tics*, but I have always, always liked that rule.

“Hmmm, the votes are in, and the may­or-elect is John Smith. Too bad he’s still got eight hun­dred signs up all over the city. Oh well. Who came in sec­ond? Lord Volde­mort? Are you sure? Check again. All right, all right. Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, democ­ra­cy sim­ply does not work.”

And I know that a lot–probably a majority–of the signs in ques­tion are not put up by the can­di­date. But if you real­ly sup­port your can­di­date, you can take down the signs you put up for him or her, right? Right?

I thought so.

_______________________
* Things like bal­lot-box stuff­ing and vot­er intim­i­da­tion, for instance. Not that that sort of thing does­n’t hap­pen in grown-up pol­i­tics; I just wish it didn’t.