A social "smoke and mirrors" illusion that most people wouldn't catch on to, with regard to the fact that they're being manipulated unless they're mindful about such things.
Common election marketing can sometimes get very competitive in order to get those extra votes, but rarely crosses the line, especially in recent years thanks to renewed interest in matters concerning the protection of the electoral process.
Manipulation is probably the biggest threat to such process. Even I might be being manipulated into writing such a blurb about this, but I doubt anyone anticipated the direction I'd go with in terms of such a post. Still, as a voter, you should when considering any viewpoint, remember that your perspective counts, and you should carefully consider anything that presents other points of view, including this post.
Electioneering can take many different forms, but the most common one is the use of colour symbolism as a means of conditioning people in a specific direction with regard to the colours that represent those electees on the ballot. For the most part, colour symbolism electioneering remains related to the logo colours of the parties on the ballot, and each party has their own colours that symbolically represent the parties. In Canada, Liberals are red for instance, Conservatives often symbolized by blue, while the New Democratic Party is often symbolized by orange.
How electioneering is attempted might involve simple schemes, such as associating party colours with detrimental or stigmatic representations. For instance, in the case of Liberals, by associating the party colour with that of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the case of the Conservative party, by associating the colour blue with something equally stigmatic, though ironically in this world of American controlled media on this side of the globe, you won't find many emblematic symbols where blue is represented in a potentially negative or stigmatic way. In the case of the New Democratic Party, stigmatization might involve associating the colour orange with prison, despite the fact that our civic system relies upon the concept of legal penalization. Regardless, the colour orange representing this can be stigmatic if a group takes that symbolism and then runs with it, enforcing it upon people in the community with abusive zeal, so as to stigmatize voters against that colour, and hence, the party it symbolizes.
Over time, we become conditioned to the symbolism of colours, and in some extreme cases, people who've been extremely conditioned can exhibit signs of trauma when colour symbolism becomes involved. Consider that impact when such people who've been traumatized that way exercise their civic duty at the ballot. Even if the party colours aren't included on the ballot itself, most of us are conditioned early on with regard to political branding and colours. When we know the candidate is a member of a specific party, we're already branding them via colour symbolism based upon the party colours, and if such persons have been traumatized with regard to specific party colours, they might potentially alter their vote in accordance with such traumatization.
For instance, if a person is socially treated by the community as if they are a Nazi, simply for liking the colour red. Perhaps stigmatization present south of the Canadian border can make its way up here too, if voters aren't consciously made aware of such conditioning. Trump is associated with the colour red in the United States, because that is the colour used by the Republican Party to symbolize their party, while blue symbolizes the Democrats. With Canada being bombarded by American media, voters that aren't aware of this difference might subconsciously be affected at some level when making a choice on the ballot.
Religion is often associated with specific colours depending upon the religion and sect. Hence, manipulating people based upon the colour symbolism associated with specific religions is already a big part of swaying voters. Blue often represents Protestantism and Jehovah's Witnesses (whose members are encouraged not to vote), while Red can represent Non-Protestant Christianity, some Muslim sects and other religions as well. Orange generally tends to represent a secular or religiously independent public office. These ideas carry strong stigmas that very much affect the voting population. Many people in the community simply vote based upon this colour symbolism, hoping that when the ballots are counted and their party is sworn into office, that the colour symbolism of their religion being the elected party will afford their religion more social power in the community based upon authority, rather than by conduct.
Still, achieving such a goal on a large scale would be difficult for those electioneering, but not impossible. Enter follow voting, which would offer a solution whereby colour symbolism or any other kind of conditioning wouldn't be necessary across an entire demographic, but instead, a very small group of people.
Follow voting is the idea that there are some of us who really get involved in understanding a party's platform and what they're going to push for if they get elected into office. Some of us spend time looking into these things before we vote, even if its an examination of the platform for each of the parties, while many others simply aren't able to manage the time to do so. Follow voting is a hidden solution for many people who'd take such a chance with their elective power.
The idea is that a large group of people instead of investigating the issues themselves and the appropriate party based upon their platform, instead find someone who has similar interests and ideals in the community, who does all of the investigation work needed to pick a candidate that meets their criteria.
Follow voting then would refer to a group of people who rescind their vote, transferring it to this person who essentially they're allowing to have made that choice for them. When follow voters fill out the ballot, they simply copy that first person's vote, essentially giving that one person the power of many votes, which according to our system would violate the terms of the vote. Of course, such a thing would be very difficult to detect and deter.
This still doesn't talk about electioneering, because electioneering is when one or more people devise schemes whereby they coax or manipulate voters into voting for a specific party, most often without the voters being aware that they're being manipulated at all.
So in the case of follow voting, imagine we have one person that ten thousand people have decided they're going to follow vote. The electioneers are aware of who these people are following, so their electioneering effort doesn't need to target all ten thousand people and condition them to vote for a specific party. Instead, they only need to condition the person being follow voted. In other words they only need to manipulate one person, the person that the other ten thousand are going to copy that person's vote on election day.
Hence, if they can effectively do this by whatever means, and they do sway that person's vote in favour of the party whose election results they're trying to electioneer, they've succeeded in their effort of electioneering, as ten thousand votes is a considerable measure when it comes to election.
If there are more than one persons being follow voted, they probably would then attempt to condition all of them. If each has a follow voting population of ten thousand or more, and ten people are being follow voted all together, that's a hundred thousand votes. Assuming they're able to successfully condition just six of them, that's still sixty thousand votes. Enough to steer due process by a considerable amount by simply conditioning and manipulating six people.
The only missing factor required for follow voting to effectively happen would be the ability of others to immediately know which entry on the voting ballot the person being follow voted chose. How would everyone doing the follow voting stay in sync with the person they're follow voting?
Most people in today's world are likely already aware of what would make it possible, because its a social phenomenon that has been picking up momentum for three decades and possibly more. Especially when you consider that there are efforts digitally to connect people and maintain sync across large populations and distances. Whether its a digital link via mobile phone, or some kind of psychic link between masses of people, there are potentially many ways that large groups follow voting could keep in sync with the person being follow voted.
This also caters to religions and ideologies that bar voting by their parishioners, as technically the argument would be that they aren't voting. They're simply following someone else's vote. This is a sizeable demographic when you consider that there are many such religions that prefer their parishioners not to vote. Considering that follow voting supports replacing the ballot electoral system with what amounts to being representation by appointment, the kind of people who'd follow vote need to be educated so they understand the implications of what they're supporting and the potential harm that could arise as a result.
Blue is also used by some (dangerous and abusive) ideologies to symbolize that it is alright to steal the identity of a person who has been branded with the symbolism of the colour blue. In other words, if you're simply deemed to be a part of the blue side of the fence, other people will steal your identity and replace it with someone else's. This can be a very traumatizing experience despite the fact that it is highly illegal. Often it is overlooked by law enforcement, who often just ignore it, sometimes even assisting those in the community who are changing their target's identify forcibly.
Considering that in this country, we still have ties to the Crown, and that our system even in spite of those ties, still advocates representation by ballot rather than appointment. Follow voting essentially reduces the electoral system to a system of representation by appointment, which is a step on the way to despotism.
Personally, I think that electioneering that exploits some of the public's use of follow voting and is already a growing problem, and has been in voting over the last decade and this is only the tip of the ice berg when it comes to methods employed by electioneers who are aware of these growing number of exploits.
Assuming we've gotten over the hurdle about how to keep everyone in sync with regard to follow voting, other electioneering schemes might play upon public superstition.
For instance, imagine a scheme whereby the follow voters are convinced that a specific person in the community has been "psychically" bonded to the consciousness of one of the election candidates. I don't necessarily mean that they actually have been psychically bonded to that person's mind, I mean that the follow voters are convinced that person has been bonded to a specific candidate through some method based upon superstition, or possibly a method based upon real science.
So now these people who are doing the follow voting, are convinced that person is reflecting the attitudes and the ideals of the candidate themselves, when in fact that person isn't running for office at all and hence actively represents no such ideals.
Kind of like when a candidate walks by a lady holding a baby, and the baby starts to cry. The public will superstitiously get the impression that candidate is a bad person. Now imagine if the lady holding the baby pinches the baby when the politician walks by, and that causes the baby to start crying. That's electioneering.
So now we have a group of people who are convinced that a member of the community is psychically bonded with one of the candidates, and that person's attitudes and reactions are representing that candidate. Good and bad alike.
If that person behaves badly, then the follow voters are likely not going to vote for that candidate. In other words, if someone pinches the baby. It doesn't matter if the person is actually psychically bonded or not. Just the fact that these people believe it, is enough to successfully electioneer the final results. Presto! Election by superstition.
If the person's behaviour is good, it draws votes to the candidate. If their behaviour is bad, then it draws votes to one of the other candidates. All it requires is to fool enough voters into believing that person is psychically bonded to one of the candidates. In all likelihood, it would be used to promote a candidate in the event that electioneers were intent on getting a specific candidate or party into office rather than detracting votes from them.
If voters are convinced a specific person represents the person on the ballot, then some of the more abusive elements of the community might torment or harass that person, attempting to provoke the worst kind of reaction or behaviour from them.
These risks posed by such electioneering schemes can extend to influencers (even like myself despite my somewhat controversial nature). My point is that no one person should ever wield more than one vote.
I actually first encountered this problem years ago in 2014, and even reported this vulnerability to the Federal Authorities explaining the matter in several scenarios including what I published here and more. I have records of this as well, hence proving that my observation of this activity started a long time ago.
So, one person. One vote. That way we all get our say, without any one of us getting everyone else's say.
Don't forget to vote in the City Of Toronto Election!
As a final note, I spent most of Monday, Tuesday (yesterday) and all of last night right up until the wee hours of the morning (about 8 AM EST) under verbal harassment attack by my neighbours and some people online as well via hacking attacks, though in all likelihood, the perpetrators are in communication with people nearby in the same community, possibly in the same building, and in all likelihood, members of an abusive ideology and very possibly, organized crime.
For that reason, I won't be posting any new chapters for The Two Butterflies, We Who Stand On Guard or Night Boat until I deem that I've recovered enough to continue writing.
This post and everything on this blog is written in Toronto, Ontario in the country of Canada. Nothing on this post or any of the content herein is written by anyone named Bobby, or Bob nor anyone who is employed with or a client of Dixon Hall with all due respect. Nor is the writer (me) a guitar player nor have they ever owned a guitar. I am not a part of the "blue" team or the "brown" team that I've discussed on this and other posts that take part in identity theft or identity swapping, or reverse the context of a person's expression to the opposite context of what was expressed. I've never been incarcerated in jail or prison. Ron Silk has nothing to do with this website and I am not Ron Silk. I don't use, buy or sell narcotics. I am not Clarence or Terence either, and neither such persons have anything to do with Shhhh! Digital Media or its content.
Finally, I support LGBTQ2 rights and marriage, though I am heterosexual myself and no member of the LGBTQ2 community themselves takes part in writing the content on this site. I do not delve into the personal lives of my artists, as that is their business, not my own.
My own love interest is a Mandarin Chinese woman with whom I've been romantically involved previously. I am not a member of any religion with all due respect.
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