Author’s Note: The reality of life is at times complex. At the moment, unloading the condominium at the place that was my home for two decades interferes with normal activity. I was screening a load of notes and bills last examined some thirty years ago to determine if useful information might inadvertently be disclosed in simple housecleaning and taking out the trash. I wondered about someone whose work activity includes sorting other people’s trash for exploitation. Then I put the thought aside and went back to slicing up old checks from accounts long closed. Sort of like turning on the computer in the morning. If you like the unvarnished, a trove can be found at the website but only if you wish to.   –       Vic

  I am fortunate to have a small group of professional pals whose views I trust. That would be the Writer’s Section at Socotra House LLC, and those who publish their thoughts in unvarnished terms, sometimes more caustic than suitable for the loyal Daily readership. But their thoughts, filtered through professional lives dedicated to unraveling mysteries, are valuable in understanding what is going on in this evolving world. I respect them immensely.  

The cascade of amazing actions in our amazing times has provoked some controversy. The WS has seen a few things- from combat to social change- and has grudgingly come to a realization that things really have changed in America, though for the life of us we can’t understand “why.” You can like or dislike Mr. Trump. Many of us find brash New York Real Estate developers to not be on the list of people we would like to talk to. But he was alert, in his fashion, and his policies seemed to generally do what we wanted after the long Obama Presidency, in which all sorts of mysterious stuff happened without public comment.   

Taking a poll of the staff, most of us voted that we thought local zoning was a good thing, since it was normally (though not always) established to benefit the people who lived within it. Under Mr. Obama’s guidance, not law, that would all be done away with. Replacing it was some sort of scheme that would impose someone’s idea of “equity” on decisions made by other people for the single largest investment most of us make. Our homes.   

There is justification behind it all, of course, and worthy of discussion. But because the people proposing it know most people feel strongly about the matter, it is not discussed. That was just one of the many issues “solved” through the un-elected bureaucrats in the Executive Branch over whom the Congress has ceased to exercise any meaningful authority or oversight. Which is technically not quite true. Instead, they are overseen by an invisible but quite real cadre of activists, fueled by a financial system unmentioned (though not unanticipated) in our founding documents.   

I got a strong note from a pal this week, cautioning me on pontificating about such matters. It was a surprising tone from a pal I respect a great deal, since it was phrased in the same way we used to talk to country folk who lived full time around the cabin Up North in Michigan. You know, the ones who didn’t know what was going on in the Detroit we understood too well. The means by which we arrived at the Biden Administration is a case in point. The Dread COVID Pandemic. In response to the terrifying disease, we conducted a national election through unconventional voting practices. These were worked out in advance, though not by legislatures, to ensure maximum participation, which was successful. But subsequent examination of who these voters actually were betrayed a problem area.   

This morning we saw a proposal to just let everyone here vote. There was no provision for ‘citizenship,’ just like it could not be asked about in the last national census. We accepted the improbable results because these sorts of things do not regularly happen in the America with which most of us are familiar. I think most of us were of good will about the numerous failures in the effort, until a massive interstate effort to report things that did not happen legally began to surface. But as I said, something this enormous is unusual even in the America we knew. From a personal standpoint, the group in the Writers Section has voted in every national election since we were eligible to do so. My experience only goes back to 1970, a half century ago. Others voted by mail from war zones. It was a matter of public duty. And in emergency situations that nobody seemed to understand very well, including the experts, it was understandable.    I looked at that last sentence and marveled. But in the America we knew, we dealt with problems and moved on. This one was curious, though. Another part of a massive centralization of matters regarding voting was controversial. Like, who was eligible, who wasn’t, how they voted, where those votes were counted and kept. It appeared those sorts of things associated with how we exercised the franchise got a little confused. In the end, after a (brief) pause in pandemic panic, the massive change in voting authority was not passed in Congress. But parts of it, sometimes buried in emergency authorization to spend enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars, did creep in.   

I will only belabor you with one of them. Perhaps you have heard of it. It is called “Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).” It is also known as “Ranked Voting,” or “Preferential Voting.” It is complicated enough that most of us didn’t understand it. Here is a short take. The various terms refer to a system in which voters use a ‘ranked’ ballot to select more than one candidate for an office, and to rank those choices in a linear sequence. This is different than the system we have used since the founding of the nation, which we do understand, or understood.   

In the old ‘Cardinal voting’ system, candidates are independently rated rather than ‘ranked.’ The practical effect is what has happened in California, which they tell us has a preponderance of Blue voters. Therefore, the most popular Red candidate would be apportioned fewer votes than all the Blue candidates rolled into the most acceptable of all Blue candidates. Or, the production of a de facto (not de jure) one party state. 

  RCV was initially approved in New York City through a ballot referendum in 2019. It was an off-year election with low turnout, a vehicle used by people who work these things full time to introduce controversial issues without having to have a controversy.   ‘Ranked Choice’ is now in use in 22 US jurisdictions. To be “fair,” which is something we used to consider necessary on fundamental issues affecting all voters, RCV has some seemingly attractive qualities. The leading national advocate is an organization known as “Fair Vote.” It claims, in theory, at least, that the system can make “democracy more fair” by helping to choose a winner with the widest possible base of support.

As with many issues, that is also a negative, in that an opponent is essentially defeated by the whole slate of opposition candidates, of whom the winner may not be the one who best exemplifies a party position. The recent election for the mayoral election after the appalling Bill DeBlasio, known briefly as America’s worst Mayor, were illuminating. The RCV system there introduced serious distortions in results. And included 122,000 “test” ballots by mistake. It almost eliminated the leading candidate, a former cop sworn to clean up the crime wave that has enveloped America’s civic face to the world.  There are those among us who think something similar may have propelled Mr. Biden to the White House. The Writers Section is not unanimous in their position on the matter, but the introduction of a system in which running for second place on a party ticket could produce a winner seems to fly in the face of simplicity, accuracy, transparency and accountability.   

With one of the arguments about voting being the alleged hardship of simply acquiring a photo identification you can understand introduction of a new level of complexity is counterintuitive. That ID is necessary for banking, liquor stores and public transportation is irrelevant. Now, even having achieved the ability to properly identify themselves, voters are expected to de-crypt a ballot that may reflect choices that are not intended, and too complicated for anyone except a voting professional to understand.   The view from the Piedmont is that is the way they prefer it.   

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.co