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There are two parts to this.

Obviously, if you are from a blue state, especially a deep blue state, if you run as a Republican, you are throwing your money into a fire. My father was involved in local and state politics in a deep blue state and ran as a Democrat. Granted, this was in 1979 when there were still some Democrats who were to the right of Joseph Stalin. My dad was no Leftist. He was a plankowner in Citizens for Limited Taxation and was a 30 year Navy veteran. He was a conservative through and through, but I think he subscribed to the notion that you can’t make a difference unless you can get through the door.

The other part of this is that the Left cravenly uses veteran status as a lever to pry away the votes from people who might not usually vote for a Leftist. I was up in Maine on vacation a month or two before the 2018 election, and was in a bar having dinner. A commercial for a politician came on (Jared Golden) and even though the sound was not on, I tried to develop a sense of the candidate strictly from the visuals.

Young, good looking guy. He was target shooting, and they showed pictures of him as a Marine in the Middle East...I thought “Hey, he looks like a pretty good candidate based on the visuals. Seems like a pro-2nd Amendment person...hm. Is he a Republican?”

But I couldn’t figure out from the ad, there was no party affiliation anywhere in the ad.

I found out later when, out of curiousity, I looked him up and found out he is a Left-wing gun grabber. The difference between the visuals and the reality was astonishing. I also found out his election was somewhat unusual.

From Wikipedia: “...On election night, Golden trailed two-term incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin by 2,000 votes. As neither candidate won a majority, Maine’s newly implemented ranked-choice voting system called for the second preferences of the two independent candidates to be redistributed to either Poliquin or Golden, in accordance with those voters’ second choice on the ballot. The independents’ supporters overwhelmingly ranked Golden as their second choice, so he defeated Poliquin by 3,000 votes after the final tabulation...”

I thought “What the hell is “ranked-choice” voting?” I had never heard of it, and it involves ballots that lets voters make multiple choices that can be transferred under certain circumstances.

I read the explanations with a frown on my face, because I am 100% opposed to all efforts to make access to voting “easier” via methods like “Motor Voting”, mail in ballots, extended voting times, district gerrymandering, and dozens of other efforts including the most heinous one that only became aware of in this election...Ballot Harvesting. I am not opposed to various methods to get the vote from people who are home-bound/bed-ridden, on vaction out of state or on business, at school, or military. I support those.

But I feel that every single one of these efforts to make voting as convenient as possible simply are levers to open up chinks in an already vulnerable voting process that can be exploited by the Left.

And make no mistake, voter fraud is the sole domain of the Left. Voter fraud on the Right happens but is relatively rare, but is pervasive on the Left. And they get away with it, and there are no consequences for it.

So, in this context, as I looked at this “ranked voting”, I became aware that it was pushed long and hard by the Left, with a small smattering of “bipartisan support” from RINO Republicans to get it into legislation. Ballot Harvesting, Motor Voter, efforts to impede voter ID or purging voter rolls are all opposed by the Left.

So, in an increasingly small number of available swing votes, the Left routinely hijacks the legislative processes (See the Soros “Secretary of State” initiative which unashamedly does exactly that) and at the same time, engages in fraud and deception at all levels. Look at this example of Jared Golden...he lost on election night by 2000 votes, then ended up winning by 3000 votes (a 5000 vote swing) after the polls had closed.

And on top of that, they have to hide the party affiliation and fallaciously portray a man like Jared Golden as a conservative in order to win.

Let me see if I have this straight....

One can go to the voting booth, see a list of 10 candidates and are ‘allowed’ to vote for say 5 of them.

If the ‘magic number is’ say 25000 to win and 3 of mine get 3000 each, the LEAST popular of the list of 10 get eliminated and it goes on till there is a majority of 1 winner?
And your ‘vote’ gets flipped till someone has the required amount?

Correct on the ‘Vet’ status. USED TO BE that if a Vet running I would take a long(er) look at all involved and if ‘close’ that would be my deciding factor.

The way ALL these clowns vote lockstep anymore, almost have to vote so YOUR side has more players.

Tell me in a group of say 300 where ALL think the exact on every issue.
I and my ‘gang’ were professional drunks for years and ‘close’ friends and you can bet your bippy we NEVER had 100% agreement except for getting ‘another one’ and xxxxx is a cheapskate cause he never buys around...

This system reminds me of Casey Stengel was watching a young rook at 3B and ball after ball was getting by him and those he managed to get to, many were thrown away.
Casey got disgusted, grabbed his glove told the rook to move and said
“This is how it is done”
Ball hit to Case goes right through his legs
“YOU got this place so screwed up NOBODY can play it” shouted Casey as he stormed off the field.