David Orr and Making Voting Just So ‘Easy’
By RAY HANANIA
Southwest News-Herald Friday, June 21, 2013
Despite the low voter turnout, voting is already easy.
But not everyone wants to take the time to vote. In fact, the vast majority of residences who could vote don’t even register to vote. They don’t want to.
That’s sad of course, when you compare that to what’s happening in other countries where governments are described by the news media as “extremist.” More than 66 percent of the population of Iran — the population — went to the polls and voted for a new president.
But Cook County Clerk David Orr is a self-described “reformer,” a label that is meaningless in Chicagoland politics. The truth is reformers are just bad politicians who usually are incapable of winning office.
Everyone knows most voters fall into one of two categories: People who have an interest in local government, and those who do not.
Voters with an interest include those related to officials, have government jobs, or are members of an organization supporting incumbents. The rest are usually disgruntled. Their candidates are losers always on the outside, pretending to be “reformers.”
Orr wants to change that by making it easy for anyone to vote. But, it’s already easy. All you have to do is register. Orr thinks making it “easier” will mean more of “his” supporters will vote.
But I have bad news for Orr. Internet voting will increase corruption and make it easier for votes to be stolen.
Reformers want to “reform” the system just enough so they can take control, give contracts to their pals and use their offices to oppress opponents — all of the things they claim incumbents do.
What Orr is really saying is that people who can vote but don’t are lazy.
The vast majority of people who don’t vote, don’t vote because they are happy with the system and services.
In reality, 5 percent of everything is corrupt or broken. That’s true in government as it is true in private business, though there are far more private businessmen and non-government officials serving time in jail than there are elected officials convicted of corruption.
Orr’s strongest ally is the mainstream media. But 35 years on both sides of the political aisle has shown me that the media is more corrupt and more political than the politicians. The media doesn’t care about truth. They only care about profits, and living in big homes on the North Shore where they suppress scandal and crime when it involves their own neighborhoods.
They put their kids in expensive private schools; they hire their relatives (nepotism); and they give contracts to their pals, ignoring the issue of who is more qualified.
Orr and the media share another important characteristic. They are both hypocrites.
They point fingers at their enemies, but never at themselves. Who monitors the media or the “reformers?” No one. What they do has nothing to do with ethics or “professional journalism.”
That’s why the biased media gives people like David Orr a pass. The media is in a war to destroy your local governments, or at least sell more newspapers trying. Fortunately, they are failing and they are selling fewer and fewer newspapers.
I think Orr is vulnerable, if a strong challenger takes him on as they should.
(Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist and media consultant. He is president of Urban Strategies Group. Reach him at http://www.TheMediaOasis.com or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/RayHanania.)
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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