I went and voted yesterday. My state, Michigan, like most states has early voting, and quite frankly early voting is the best thing to happen in the electoral process in my lifetime. No longer do people feel rushed to get to the polls before work or after work on election day and then wait in long lines to cast a ballot. The excuse that the lines are too long or the polls are only open a certain number of hours is no longer valid. My voting site is open a full 10 days before the official election day and it’s open even on the weekends.

Since I live in a rural area my voting location is a small township office. There was a handful of cars in the parking lot but there was no line to speak of and I was done in less than 10 minutes. I had the same feeling I usually have after I vote….a feeling that I’ve participated in our democracy and electoral process.

Then I went home and turned on the TV and was immediately assaulted, and I’m sure you know what I was assaulted with as you have probably also been inundated at every commercial break for the past few months with the dreaded political commercial.

One commercial is one candidate railing against what their opponent did or said and then the very next ad is the opponent railing against the first ad and on it goes seemingly in an endless cycle. Change the channel for a few moments and your likely to stumble on another series of ads. It’s so bad now that with less than a week to go before the election we’re now getting ads for candidates outside of our area, people who we won’t be voting for or against. It was while sitting through another series of ads, this one had the candidate trying to appear folksy and neighborly, that I had an idea.

If you take advantage of early voting there should be a way to then not have political ads appear on your TV. It can’t be that hard, with the amount of technology we carry around in our pockets every moment of every day there must surely be a way to stop the ads after you’ve already voted. I’m sure this would increase voting even more. Who wouldn’t want an end to political ads, people would be early voting in droves if it meant no more ads interrupting their viewing of Jeopardy or Law & Order or whatever NCIS series they were watching.

Instead maybe your local humane society could get that commercial slot to run ads about all the dogs and cats that need to be adopted or perhaps your local food bank could run an ad emphasizing their need for donations as the holidays approach. Hell, I’d just settle for some elevator music and some waves crashing on the shore for a few minutes instead of one candidate after another telling me a vote for their opponent is the worst thing to happen in the entire history of the world.

This could be an entire political platform for a candidate looking to connect to real people. A candidate that promises to end political ads to anyone who votes early would surely get a lot of votes.

I know there’s more important issues confronting us on a daily basis but an end to being bombarded with ads would make life slightly more enjoyable. So come on candidates connect with real people and encourage more early voting with the promise of stopping the ads once you’ve voted. A candidate that does that gets my vote…..and can you do something about this silly time change thing we do twice a year.

Be kind to the poll workers….most of them are somebody’s Mom’s or Grandma’s

Peace and Love,

John