2020, the election campaigns have begun

[Labster]

Well, Nevada has already dumped the Shadow App. But as we know, getting politicians to understand software, at the most basic level, is very difficult. A fun read, for me anyway, was What I Learned Trying To Secure Congressional Campaigns. But TL;DR these are people who think that sending out mysteriously named .docx attachments is effective communications strategy.

There are other issues, too. The rules changed this year so that candidates who didn't hit 15% at a caucus site were not "viable", and should have been immediately disqualified, but in the second round "realignment", people switched to give them delegates, as had been done in previous years. So what do you do? You award the delegates anyway, because you can't make the people come back in and vote again.

At this point, as a minor Democratic official in California, I want the Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party's head on a platter. They managed to own-goal this one so hard that now I have to explain how "we" won't run the country like "we" ran this election.

Meanwhile, I got a ballot in the mail yesterday. I filled in the bubbles on the paper, and mailed it back to the county office today. No postage necessary. There, an elected official who happens to be a Republican will count the ballots. Everything will turn out fine. I also got the pleasure of marking the box next to my own name, which was far less exciting that I was expecting. Unlike Ireland, I just have to guess that my choice will still be viable in a month on "election day", and hope for the best.

And then an hour later I got a phone call with a push poll. They asked how likely I would be to vote, I said the question didn't apply because I had already voted, and they hung up on me.