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MORE CONTROL!  No Cell Phones In Voting Booths!

Terry Gray

Candidate

          On the news last night I saw a story about voting.  Not your usual story but one little blip that struck me as funny and made me mad on several levels.  I both agreed and disagreed with the subject of the story.

          It seems that election officials in their infinite wisdom and government given powers have made a decision.  “THERE WILL BE NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED IN THE VOTING BOOTHS!”  Hmmm.  Why?

          It seems that the election officials have decided that voters need to make up their own minds on who their next little dictators will be.  Duh.  Will it be the same dictators that agreed with the idea of “NO CELL PHONES” or another little dictator with bigger decisions to make?

            See, I agree somewhat with this decision.  By the time the polls open, voters will have been totally overloaded with candidate information.  Good stuff, bad stuff, personal stuff, business stuff, on and on and on.  A voter should know by now.  That’s where my agreement with this rule ends.

So, there are several questions that need answers.  Is the voter with a cell phone using it to conduct daily business while he is voting?  Maybe he is multi-tasked, is capable of doing this, and has already made up his voting mind.  Is he speaking with his ailing mother in a hospital in Houston?  Maybe she has only hours left to live and he is doing all he can to ensure his place in the will.  Is he getting the up-to-the-minute election data?  I see nothing wrong with that.  Is he talking to his buddy about who he voted for?   No big deal.  Is he acting on a once-in-a-lifetime stock deal?  Good for him.  What is he doing?  The reasons are unimportant.  That is his business.

          If he needs the cell phone to make a selection decision after the curtain has been closed, then he doesn’t need to be voting.  But that decision is neither for others nor for me to make.  He has a right to vote. 

          No one has the right to tell ME that I can’t be swayed by any means available to ME to make a decision as to how I will vote.  Candidates try every trick in the book to sway MY vote.  Friends, family, fellow workers, people in the grocery store and at the park all have a say.  They all give us input and their own opinions on the right candidates.  We are literally attacked on a daily basis for weeks.  That little cell phone conversation in the booth, well, so what? 

          Personally I feel that someone just wanted to make a decision.  “NO CELL PHONES.”  But you see, buddy, or buddies, as the case may be; your decision to not allow ME the use of whatever means that I choose to gain information for MY vote is in itself a factor in swaying MY vote.  It is also denying ME MY right to use whatever means I have to gain all the information I need to decide MY candidate. It is denying ME MY right to DECIDE. 

          Now that I’VE gotten that off my chest, have a nice day.

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