A 4 layered approach to decide who to vote for

Introduction

Giving our vote to an electoral candidate is an important part that we play in driving our future forward. If we aren’t smart about it then we could elect people into power who could cause us harm, distress and ruin our future.

This article is going to look at a strategy to decide who to vote for. It involves looking at four areas between candidates. Eliminating ones that don’t fit and choosing the one that aligns with your ideas and views the most while also being reliable enough to follow through on their promises. Evaluating a candidate based on the four areas we are going to discuss below hopefully helps you decide who is worthy of your vote.

Integrity and reliability

When you are evaluating a candidate, you would want to know what they believe in, what they stand for or what they are likely to do. There are candidates from whom you wouldn’t get an honest answer for any of these important aspects.

These are people who lack integrity and are not reliable. How do you know if a person lacks integrity or reliability? If there is information about their past then we could look at their past. If the candidate has been involved in multiple criminal activities or frauds then it is safe to assume they don’t care much about others. Their activities show they don’t care about the law, cause harm to people and do not have much in the way of regret. In other words such a person lacks integrity and cannot be trusted to give you an honest answer, let alone on the promise to make your life better.

If you couldn’t find any information about the candidate’s past then pay attention to what they are saying. If you know something is obviously true and they say it is not, like saying climate change is not real or vaccines cause more harm than good then you know they are lying. If they have a habit of lying then it could be either them lacking integrity or they don’t have the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not. In both cases you cannot trust that person to make your life better. In the first case the person isn’t interested in helping you. In the second case the person is not smart, hallucinating or living in an alternate reality. In any of those cases the person probably lacks the ability to understand what is really going on, see what you are going through and solve your problems. Their actions or words won’t make much sense. Interacting with them would be like asking somebody to gift you a cat and they call the police on you. You cannot trust them to see and address the real problems you face, let alone solve them for you.

When you are looking at a candidate and they are telling you who they are, through their actions and words, listen to them. Once you know the candidate lacks integrity you don’t need any more information to decide if they are worthy of your vote. They have shown they aren’t worthy of it so don’t vote for them.

How they answer questions, do they take responsibility and how they deal with criticisms?

When you vote somebody into power you would want them to do the things they said they would do. But after somebody gets into power you generally have no say in the decisions they make. If you don’t like what they are doing you may not have a way to vote them out. You may have to put up with their bad decisions till the end of their term. After their term you can vote for somebody else and remove them from power, but the damage would already have been done. This is where judges, journalists and other candidates come into the picture. Judges keep candidates from doing things against the law. Journalists analyze the candidate’s actions, point out mistakes and expose wrongdoings. Other candidates can defeat bad policies by voting against them. In short judges, journalists and other candidates play a crucial role in holding a candidate accountable for their actions while they are in power.

When a candidate is talking bad about journalists, judges and other candidates, pay more attention to the situation. Is there any substance to it? If the judges, journalists and other candidates are just doing their job, then we have a case of somebody who wants unchecked power or can’t take criticism. When we are voting somebody into power we want them to do what we want. We didn’t vote to give them the power to do whatever they want or to continue doing the wrong things, even after their mistakes are pointed out.

When a candidate doesn’t answer questions properly whether it’s questions from journalists, judges, other candidates or from any of us, we have a person that can’t take responsibility or is trying to hide something. When you ask them a question and they give an unrelated answer, only answer parts of the question, omit important information or just ignore the question then we have a case of somebody who is not taking responsibility or they are trying to hide some wrongdoings. In any case such actions tell us they cannot be relied upon to do what is right to help improve our life.

When a candidate shows contempt for judges, journalists and other candidates or when they don’t answer questions properly we are dealing with somebody who would rather have no checks on power, isn’t taking responsibility or may have something to hide. Regardless of what the candidate says, their actions tell they are either not interested or unfit to make the right decisions to help improve our life. It doesn’t make sense to give them your vote.

What the political party they represent stand for?

If a candidate does not have the character flaws that make them unfit to do their job, for example lack of integrity, reliability or responsibility, then look for what the political party they are a part of represents. If the ideas and views of the political party align with what you believe in, then look for what the ideas and views of the candidate are. If what you are looking for aligns with that of the political party as well as the views and ideas of the candidate then you have a potential candidate who you could vote for. Look for more information about them before making a final decision.

If the ideas and views of the political party that the candidate represents doesn’t align with you, then giving them your vote would help bad ideas grow. Bad ideas about society and people is not something that should be encouraged.

For example if a political party is driven by racist views and ideas then the policies that they implement are going to reflect that. This is not good news. Apart from the fact that it is not fair because we are all humans and nobody gets to choose their parents, there is an economic and personal argument against it. Generally we say a person who has compassion, integrity etc is a good person and a person who is dishonest, greedy etc is a bad person. I am sure you have come across a person with bad qualities who belong to your own race. The qualities that make a person good or bad are generally individual traits. A person having a longer nose or a different shape or color doesn’t tell much about their character or how they think and act. This is simply not enough information to make a judgement on individual character. To make a good judgement on anybody’s character you need to look at a history of their actions and words, there are no shortcuts. But even though it lacks substance, racism exists. A possible explanation for it is the way our brain works and the logical shortcuts that it takes which are called cognitive biases. Our brain creates categories for things. It is how when we have seen a gala apple and an ambrosia apple then we can easily recognize a red delicious apple as an “apple” even if we have never seen that kind of apple before. In a similar fashion our brain could categorize people based on color. Our brain also thinks in terms of “us vs them” categorization. Combining these two ways of how our brain functions, we could take two categories of people and construct an “us vs them” dynamic. In this case, an “us vs them” dynamic for “people of our color” and “people of a different color”. Then when we hear news of something bad that an individual did and that person belongs to the “the different color” group then our brain could associate that the people of the “them” group, “people of a different color”, do bad things and hence are bad people. The problem with that association is that one person in a group doing bad things is not evidence for concluding that all the members in the group do bad things or that they are all bad. It is a kind of cognitive bias which is a flaw in our brain’s logic. So a possible explanation for racism is in how our brain works, categorizing things, creating an “us vs them” dynamic, mixed in with cognitive biases that picture “us” as good and “them” as bad. Political parties that ignore the reality or promote it, are causing segregation and promoting hatred in society. Hatred takes a mental toll on individuals and when the people in society don’t work together as a team then they don’t progress or achieve as much as when everybody works together. A political party ignoring or promoting racism is damaging to our mental well being and standing in the way of our progress. In short, giving power to a political party promoting bad ideas is a bad idea.

It is also best not to vote for a candidate who aligns with your ideas and views but the ideas and views of the political party they represent doesn’t align with what you are looking for. It is because even if a majority of the candidates belonging to the political party don’t support these bad ideas, there is always a risk that these bad ideas will bleed into policies. It can happen because when you vote you don’t specify whether you voted for the good ideas of the candidate or the bad ideas of the political party. It only takes a few loud voices in the political party to claim that people voted for the bad ideas of the political party and for damaging policies to be implemented. So regardless of how good the candidate is, if the political party they represent doesn’t align with your views and ideas, it is best to not vote for them and unintentionally encourage bad ideas that damage you and your society.

What the candidate stand for?

If a candidate has been flipping back and forth between major ideas that they say they stand for, then they are probably after power more than being guided by their conscience to do what is good for society and the people. Their focus is probably not public service and the job being exactly that makes them a bad choice to vote for.

If a candidate has been in power before, pay attention to what they accomplished and the decisions they made while in power. Do their policies align with what they promised? Do they stand for similar things now as they did before? If they changed their beliefs then what was the reason behind it? Were the things they did relevant enough or were they after meaningless projects and policies? Gather such information that reveal their character and how well they did while in power. It will help you make a good decision. Be careful when trying to get the answers you need from biased or unreliable sources like the candidate itself or a journalist who praises them all the time including their mistakes. Listening to such sources continuously risks you falling for the biased information or in even believing outright lies. Look for information from various sources and be open to there being potential biases in the information. In short, collect enough reliable information so that you can make a sound judgement about what the candidate believes in and what they are likely to do. If you find what they say they believe in is different from what their actions suggest, then it is not a good sign that you can trust them with your vote.

If a candidate doesn’t have a questionable political past or if they seem promising but don’t have a political past, then listen to the problems they have identified, areas of improvement and the solutions they propose. Are their proposals relevant and are they addressing important issues and not ignoring them? Pay attention to the analysis of experts and journalists for the relevance, practicality and feasibility of the problems they identified and their proposed solutions, especially about ideas that are outside your expertise.

Please note that a candidate being charismatic or you like how they talk doesn’t mean much to your bottom line. It doesn’t indicate they can be trusted or that they are going to help improve your life.

Once you collect enough information about a candidate and the information is reliable and relevant then make an assessment of their qualities. If you find that they can be trusted, is reliable, takes responsibility for their actions, represents a political party that you align with, the candidate’s ideas and views align with yours, they address the relevant issues and propose feasible and practical solutions to problems then you have a candidate who could help improve your life and who you could trust with your vote.

Summary

1. If a candidate has been involved in multiple criminal activities, frauds or tells lies then there is no point in voting for them. Their actions show a lack of integrity and they cannot be trusted on anything, let alone the promise to make your life better.
2. If a candidate doesn’t answer questions properly, bad mouth judges, journalists or other candidates then they are not taking responsibility, they may be trying to hide something, they don’t take criticisms well or they don’t want to be held accountable for their actions and words. You vote for a candidate for them to do what you want and not for them to do whatever they want. The actions and words of the candidate reveal that they want to do whatever they want and are after unchecked power. This is not the kind of candidate you can trust your vote with.
3. If the political party that the candidate represents doesn’t align with your views and ideas then it is best to look for other candidates that are a better match, even if the candidate is good. It is because you don’t specify whether you voted for the good ideas of the candidate or whether you voted for the bad ideas of the political party. It could be interpreted either way. Voting for the candidate could be taken as a sign of support for the bad ideas of the political party. You could be unintentionally encouraging ideas that are damaging to you and your society. It would be best to stay on the safer side and not vote for such a candidate.
4. If a candidate is going back and forth between major ideas they say they stand for or if they have a political past that didn’t do what they said they would do then it means you cannot trust them on what they say they will do or what they say they stand for. Voting for them won’t help you in solving your problems because their focus is elsewhere. If you think they are charismatic or you like how they talk doesn’t mean they can be trusted or that they can help improve your life. You need to look for information about them that matters to your bottom line. If they can be trusted on what they say and to do what they said they would do, see if they take responsibility and can understand, accept and correct their mistakes. If they do then see if their political party’s ideas and views, as well as their own, align with what you are looking for. If it does then see if the promises they make and the policies they propose are relevant, feasible and practical. If so then you found a candidate who could help improve your life and who you could trust with your vote.

Conclusion

Our vote is precious. Who we elect into positions of power play a role in how our future unfolds. Be careful and try to make the best decision you can. If you find yourself in a situation where no candidate fits with your ideas and views, you may want to consider being a candidate yourself.