Decision: 2367

You know, sometimes it's hard to maintain one's dewy-eyed, Sorkin-esque political idealism when you couldn't possibly give less of a crap about who's running for what. But dutifully I did drag myself out of bed early yesterday to go down to the polling place and make my apartment-renting, childless voice heard in this year's local elections.

Do I know anything about the local school board race? Do I care about your children's future?
You don't know! How do you like democracy now?

Pictured: Not the former Mayor.

In addition to some other offices with 0% relevancy to my life, there was also this ballot measure about mayoral succession. You see, our old mayor, Bob 'The Mayor' Duffy, became the Lieutenant Governor of New York, so the Deputy Mayor stepped into Duffy's old job, because that's what deputies do. But the city charter's wording isn't totally clear so there was like a fight or something. I don't know, I wasn't here. So how do we avoid this in the future? We could make the candidates arm wrestle over knives. The winner is mayor and the loser gets a knife through the hand. I saw it on Star Trek. Klingons know how to get things done.

What? I watched a lot of Star Trek growing up. Also, now.

S-M-R-T

But since this is a democracy, the city went with a referendum. The problem is that the ballot was worded like a dyslexic SAT question:

Should the Local Law of the City of Rochester changing the manner of filling the office of Mayor in case of a vacancy, which generally provides for the Deputy Mayor to serve until a Mayor is elected at the general election or at a special election, be approved? Answer yes or no.

I'd like to think of myself as reasonably intelligent, but I have to admit that I wasn't not unconfused by this. Although I did enjoy the symmetry of a referendum to address unclear wording that was itself, unclear.


Anyway, speaking of Klingons (wasn't I?) this November you have a choice (well, actually the Arbiter of Succession does). So get out there, make your voice heard, and bring glory to the Empire! Qapla' nerds, Qapla'!

vs