Today was the primary and local elections in Maine. My wife Kim ran for school board, but I also had the opportunity to meet and talk to a number of the candidates. I went to local and regional events, my wife was a delegate to the state democratic convention, and we both read up and asked questions of the candidates for Governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, State Senate, State House, and even County Treasurer. By the time both of us went in to vote we had clear ideas about which candidates most matches our views, would best represent us, and be most likely to be able to get things done. In light of that I was really frustrated to hear the following in a podcast today.

In the above audio track Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager for Kamala Harris, says, “It’s funny, I, so DC politics is very, I’m voting right now in the DC election and I’m a low information voter. Like I, you know, vaguely mad at the mayor, you know, don’t know who anybody is. And so I just earlier today, like went to vote and I didn’t know anyone was. And so I like did, I just like started Googling people to be like, who are these people? And I don’t know.”

I find it very frustrating that people have been encouraged to vote more than they’ve been encouraged to make an informed vote. It’s also frustrating to see someone who works in politics, not even taking the time to research his local candidates and figure out who he should select. I’m surprised he could say this in a podcast without getting embarrassed. I think the get out the vote drives are misguided, and we should have taught people how to make informed choices. When you research the candidates, you are going to go out and vote.