Robocalls And Robo Voting

Robocalls And Robo Voting

All of us, I suspect, at some time have been irritated with a robocall – a telephone call from an automated source with a prerecorded message. As a senior citizen we are inundated with these bothersome calls all the time despite registering for the “National Do Not Call List”. In addition to the scam calls from the IRS, from someone named Rachel from Card Services, for a free offer for a medical alert necklace or a back brace, we rarely answer the phone unless I want to speak in tongues and absolutely blow the mind of the caller. In some instances when I do answer the phone and explain that I am leaving for an appointment and then ask for the caller’s home phone number, the immediate click and disconnect tells me that I won that battle!

Now while all of us can agree that robocalls are a nuisance and are to be avoided at all costs, there is another type of robo event that seems to be garnering a lot of discussion and deliberation here in Michigan. It’s the issue of straight ticket voting. For those of you not aware of this issue, simply stated it means voting for every candidate in a particular party – Republican or Democrat – and thus never having to select individual candidates from each side of the political spectrum. Straight ticket voting does not allow choosing some candidates from the Republican slate and then also choosing candidates from the Democratic side or any other political party.

Some voters who pledge allegiance to their respective party prefer the straight ticket voting because it is fast and requires no research on the backgrounds and qualifications of the candidates and thus requires no thinking. So for all intents and purposes we could send a robot to the voting booth with instructions to vote for a particular party and thus voters could just stay home and search for Pokémon!

Yes, we have become a nation of robots. We have robot driven cars; robots making investment decisions; bomb squad robots; and robot house cleaners to name just a few. And I suspect that given enough time we will see a robot in the cockpit of a domestic plane – yikes! Be that as it may, do we really need our important voting practice taken over by people too lazy to perform research and investigation and thus “robotically” voting for some of the highest and most influential people in the nation? I sure hope not! Let’s open up the ballots so informed voters can make choices on both sides of the political spectrum!

Now I have to go. Our doorbell just rang and an R2-D2 robot just arrived with our pizza! Beep beep boop boop!