As usual this time of year, there is an upcoming election. The actual vote will be held Tuesday November 5th, 2024. For those who also live in Honeoye Falls, the polling station is the Mendon Community Center, known to some as the Legion Hall.
As usual, we have a number of elected positions to vote on, as well as approving (or not) an amendment to the State Constitution.
Up for vote are:
United States President/Vice President: Kamala D Harris/Tim Walz or Donald J Trump/JD Vance.
United States Senator: Kirsten E Gillibrand, Michael D Sapraicone, or Diane Sare.
State Supreme Court Justice: Erin Skinner, Stacey Romeo, John Bringewatt, or Ed White. Pick two.
Representative in Congress: Joseph D Morelle or Gregg A Sadwick.
State Senator: Scott Comegys or Pamela A Helming.
Member of Assembly: Jen Lunsford or Kimberly DeRosa.
County Court Judge: Michael T Ansaldi or Joseph F DiNolfo.
County Clerk: Jamie L Romeo, Peter Vazquez, or Ann C Lewis.
Running unopposed is: Ella Marshall for Family Court Judge.
Finally, there is a proposed amendment to the State Constitution. Ballot language feels vague, but according to the State’s website, it amends Article 1 Section 11. At a surface glance, protecting against unequal treatment sounds like an obvious choice. But in looking into this more, I don’t think it’s that simple.
Those in favor of this amendment seem focused on abortion, while those against seem focused on protecting children. Looking at the actual amendment language, I can see where both conclusions could be reached. Which I think says more about our information sources these days then anything else. If two apparently trustworthy sources can reach radically different conclusion from the same source material, how are we to evaluation which is more accurate?
I think we may be in a ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf‘ scenario. As such, I’d like to propose a thought experiment: Pick something news sources have offered you information on. For a moment, disregard all that information. Consider your personal experiences. Now compare to that information. How well do they align?
Now I don’t know you, whoever is reading this, so I don’t know your personal experiences on much of anything. But, I can think of two topics that I suspect your experiences roughly align with my own: covid and climate change. At least in a broad sense, I’ll not be going into details.
When covid came around, I was told it would kill massive numbers of people, and to catch it was practically a death sentence. My experiences show:
To the best of my knowledge, I know no one who died from covid. The handful of people I know that died in the appropriate time frame were already old, sick, or both. I’ve heard of many people who died from covid, but all of that is second or third hand, no one I know personally.
While I was never tested, so cannot confirm I had covid, I did have a flu-like experience during the relevant time frame. I have heard from a number of people also having similar flu-like covid experiences, but I cannot personally verify those. Likewise, I cannot verify the second or third hand stories of people having horrible responses to this disease.
For practically my entire life I’ve been told a climate apocalypse is 5-10 years away, which will kill massive numbers of people. Time passes, another climate apocalypse prediction is made, again 5-10 years away. My experiences show:
I have not experienced significant climate changes, despite having lived through (depending on how you count them) something like 6 of these prediction cycles. Yes, some winters are colder/snowier/etc then others, some summers hotter. But overall? If anything, I think I see a trend towards milder winters and summers. Mind you, that could also be observer bias, as I spent more time outside when younger, instead of working inside.
I have not noticed massive numbers of people dying, for any reason (thus not from climate change either). Yes, unfortunate events happen, and a number of those are natural disaster related. But to match the apocalyptic predictions, I should be able to point to direct events I have observed. Not second or third hand stories, which to be fair, could be a side effect of the interconnected media landscape highlighting whatever the worst story of the day is.
I suspect the same holds true on many other topics, but I can’t speak to all of them from personal experience. And I’m not asking you to trust me on any of them. I am asking you to review your own memories. Then ask yourself how the sources telling you to vote a particular way aligns with your own experiences. If they mostly agree, then they are probably mostly right today. But if they don’t? If your own experiences can disprove what you’ve been told? Then that source is likely just as unreliable today.
Which is where I’ll end this by pointing out I won’t tell you how to vote, that’s your choice to make. Do your own research, compare to your own life experiences, and decide for yourself.
In the interests of full disclosure: I am registered as a Republican. Of course, that does not mean the Republican party endorses anything I have said here. As always, I only speak for myself.
And those are some opinions on this upcoming election. Now you’ve got a week to figure out how you will vote. Assuming you haven’t already done the early voting thing.