Sauntering Vaguely Downward

It’s that time again! Yes, the time when [my USian state] sends out its election materials and paper ballots to postal voters, for the primary elections taking place in August. I love the voter pamphlet and read it avidly from cover to cover, even for the districts I'm not eligible to vote in, because every chancer under the sun has popped their head up to run for office. Since “state candidate statements are printed exactly as submitted to the [redacted] State Secretary of State’s Office,” without censorship, correction, verification or editing, some of their statements are A M A Z I N G. Not the established politicians’ ones, of course, those are formulaic and boring. But the chancers are great. And bonkers.

Here is a selection of my favourite offerings.

The "Setting the bar low" award

Community Service: I've never been to jail.

The "I wanted to laugh at the rest of this but it turned out to be fucking tragic" award

Community Service: Despite personal problems, I have managed to avoid going to Court, except for driving without insurance. To be fair, I was living in the car at the time…

The "Hard pass based on the fewest words" award

Statement: Stop [City] / King Fascism with idiotic face!

This was repeated for several paragraphs, with an exhortation to “vote Trump” at the end. NOPE.

The "Really has it in for the rodents, wtf" award

Statement: De-list the pocket gopher, it’s not endangered. End this pocket gopher nonsense.

There’s pocket gopher nonsense going on? Do tell. Sadly, they don’t elaborate.

The "5G conspiracy" award

Statement: If elected, I will direct an independent, state-funded study of the effects of 5G cell-phone towers upon living things. My research indicates that this radiation is killing trees, birds, honey bees, human life.

This person is also against a load of stuff: chemtrails, bio-mass use for electricity, wind power, solar power, coal trains, eugenics, Satan, off-shore drilling...and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’s unclear what they’d do about any of it other than vigorously opposing it, though. I’d particularly like to know what they plan to do to fight Satan whilst in office. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The "This started out OK if a little extreme, AND THEN" award

Statement [no other information was submitted]: I am running as a spokesperson for the anti-apartheid / reparations-now movement. My issues and solutions: 1) Raise awareness that [redacted] State is Native American land, and should be returned. Colonialism is no longer acceptable. 2) The current Governor’s biggest mistake is turning [City’s] building over to proven historial Negro vampire criminals.

I don’t expect to see any of these candidate statements in the November election, but if they do appear on the ballot then things have got even worse than I imagined. USian readers, do you have any choice tidbits from your state voter pamphlets? Please share them in the comments if you do!

Our constituency's UKIP candidate canvassed my doorstep today. Too late, I remembered I had a full watering can in my hand. Opportunity: missed.

Although I was like, "I'm a non-white non-EEA* immigrant. You're done here, bye!"

* European Economic Area

Armando Iannucci, creator of such brilliant pieces of satire as The Thick of It and Veep, reminds us that this election is wide open. So if you haven't registered to vote yet, please do it today (20 April 2015) because it's the deadline. Remember, you don't need your National Insurance number to do so (explained here).