Knowledge schmowledge

[technomonkey]

I propose a new game called "Choose My Vote" behind the cut.

Here's how the game is played:

1. Register to vote with the political party marked as "Undeclared."
2. In the months, weeks, days, and hours leading up to the election, collect all the political mail you receive.  Keep a notebook by the phone so you can keep track and listen to all the robot calls you get, and when a political call comes in from an actual human, find out who's supporting it.
3. For all of these, make piles based entirely on the "paid for by" line on the paper.  The robot calls count as one sheet of paper, the human calls count as two.  For items that show up on your doorstep, count each piece of paper as two and each human encounter as three.
4. Wait until an hour or two before your voting location closes before continuing to the next step -- the last day is still fair game for them to attempt to get your vote.  In fact, I'd suggest a bonus point to any human encounter, in person or on the phone, that happens on voting day.
5. For each issue, proposition, and candidate, see which pile is biggest on voting day.  That direction is obviously wasting more of their resources on trying to get your vote than on concentrating on the issue at hand, and has no right to win.  Vote against them.
6. If there's a tie, you've got a choice: either you vote randomly, leave that one blank, or consider learning about the issue(s) it's pretending to address and vote how you believe.
7. Recycle all the paper you've been collecting and save a small forest.

Try it next time there's a major election - it's fun for the whole family!