« The Day of Your Liberation Is Near | Main | Frequently Asked Questions, Part 1 »

In Distraction 2004

October 01, 2004

The Reverse Vote Swap Manifesto

A specter is haunting America--the specter of REVERSE VOTE SWAPPING! All the powers of the two-party system have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: bosses and unions, McAuliffe and Gitlin, liberal bloggers and provincial attorneys-general.

Where is the Ohio voter who has not been "pre-emptively" enjoined not to Reverse Vote Swap? Where the Massachusetts voter who is not eyed with suspicion, lest he make contact with his Ohio brethren to arrange a Reverse Vote Swap?

Two things result from this fact:

  1. REVERSE VOTE SWAPPING is already acknowledged by all corporate parties to be itself a power.
  2. It is high time the Reverse Vote Swappers should openly, in the face of the whole nation, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the specter of Reverse Vote Swapping with a manifesto of the practice itself.

I. WHAT IS REVERSE VOTE SWAPPING?

There are millions of people in states like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, and Idaho who hate the war, the PATRIOT Act, No Child Left Behind, NAFTA/WTO/FTAA, tax cuts for the rich, etc, and would like to vote against it. Unfortunately they live in "spoiled states," which means that either the Republicans or Democrats are entitled to the states' electoral votes by gentleman's agreement. It would surely be possible to prove mathematically that Rhode Island, for instance, will go to John Kerry even if not a single person votes on Election Day, given the Democrats' lock on the votes of the dead.

On the other hand, there are millions in states like Ohio, Florida, or Pennsylvania who love the war, home-school their kids, and are opposed to modern medicine (thereby having no need for health insurance); but they would nonetheless enjoy the opportunity to fuck shit up. Unfortunately, a vote for either of the two major parties in these "swing states" would be considered uncontroversial and uninteresting.

REVERSE VOTE SWAPPING has the answers.

By mutual agreement, the "spoiled state" voter punches his ticket for Bush/Kerry, and the "swing state" voter marks his ballot for Nader. Thus the spoiled-stater gets to put his political agenda forward in the most effective way possible, and the swing-stater gets the satisfaction of knowing that shit has been fucked up.

II. RELATION OF THE REVERSE VOTE SWAPPERS TO OTHER "STRATEGIC" VOTERS

In what relation do the Reverse Vote Swappers stand in relation to the other "strategic" voters as a whole?

The Reverse Vote Swappers form a separate trend opposed to all other strategic voters. We set up sectarian principles of our own and seek to mock and demoralize all other tendencies.

Lesser-Evil Voting

We agree that one candidate is the clear lesser evil on such critical issues as the Iraq occupation, military expansion, and the oppression of the Palestinians. Still, we don't think this excuses voting for Bush.

Cobb/LaMarche

In some isolated areas, the polls show a greater than zero, but way less than one, percent result for a mysterious phenomenon called "Cobb/LaMarche." We consider these to be random deviations explained by the Uncertainty Principle, and therefore beyond analysis.

"Standard" Vote Swapping

The first vote swappers deserve credit for discovering the revolutionary methods of vote swapping; but they applied it in backward and absurd ways. In their topsy-turvy plan, Nader votes were transferred from swing states to spoiled states! What foolishness! It is like a man who gives Viagra to his acquaintances in order to make himself seem more impotent.

Posted by convener at October 1, 2004 11:19 PM