Assisting with voting forms is a sign of a good campaign

Whilst idling away the last few hours before the live coverage of the results of the primaries in Arizona and Michigan I can across the Guide to Michigan Primary by CBS News.

I was particularly taken by the few lines:

First, absentee ballots will matter here. They could likely be one-fifth of the votes, with around 200,000 in so far. Mailed-in ballots put a premium on organization (campaigns help people request ... [and] to return them) and that may favor Romney.

Now looking to our own Deputy Trevor Pitman's blog (in the comments section)

Deputy Pitman

Strange how with all of this 'anger' both Shona and Geoff were easily re-elected with Shona's vote being higher than ever? No doubt because she gave her constituents a detailed breakdown of the truth to counter Bryan's sad and desperate smear campaign. With regards to a second post that I couldn't use because of the standard deranged and abusive rant... 

In answer to the question police documents reveal that Deputy Geoff Southern was originally falsely charged with an offence committed by another candidate having a five letter name beginning with an 'A'. The name is quite clearly typed on the witness statement. [[Allan Maclean - DP]]

A second individual in St. Helier No. 2 is also revealed in further documentation; this one being desribed as having a three letter name beginning with the letter 'R' and having a beard. [[Rod Bryans - DP]] Neither were in the JDA. Neither were taken to court or prosecuted...COLD, HARD FACTS - GET OVER IT!

Well here we have something of a quandry. Why is it that in the US the fact that candidate's assist voters with registration and voting is simply a sign of a well organised campaign, whilst in Jersey it is the cause of 20 statutory infractions, (NOTE I do NOT call them criminal).

Now I'm not going to pretend that I support in any way the particular politicians who were convicted or indeed Trevor, they are anti-Libertarian. For me the battle is not to get the rich to pay more tax, but to allow the poor to pay less tax through decreased government expenditure. Getting the rich to pay more just tightens the chains around us all, by providing more opportunities to create dependency on the State, no one benefits from State intervention except the State.

Whilst Trevor does have some very good ideas, fundamentally it is all about how much money is being left un-pickpocketed by government that provides a healthy economy and a happy society and no move to increase taxation will ever get my support (with the exception of sorting out the disaster that is Jersey Company Taxation, and I say that as a Director of a Jersey Company). Such is the difficulty in tying oneself to Unions, whose future revenues depend on increases in the size of government. Unions themselves serve a 'vital' function for the establishment in driving pay increases for senior civil servants, which are tied to the increases for manual workers on a percentage basis.

I do wonder if the statute that Deputy Southern and Deputy S Pitman broke is a valid one, does it comply with Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights? Is it necessary and what harm does it prevent? Further if it is necessary how can it be applied in a discriminatory way? Trevor would know more about the events than me and I have no reason to doubt him.

I also wonder why they did not challenge the decisions made through the Courts... it would appear that all the necessary evidence was in hand. For evil to triumph all it takes is for good men to do nothing.

I wonder if this is something the Electoral Commission will be re-examining?