Making choices

In 2016 my final pass% for the choices in the election was 30%.

This year was better. Have been tracking my voting choices. While this post might end up attracting a bunch of more telemarketers before the next election, want you all to see how tricky it can be for many voting choices, given the Marketing machinery that goes behind every one of these measures and propositions.

To say elections are messy in the US is an understatement! 

My 2020 Election Report card : 

Pass/ Fail: 12 pass, 10 fail, 1 Meh. That is >50%. Better than 2016! 

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✅ means got it right..❌ means the choice has lost or is almost gone.

My vote:
President?VP - Biden/Harris - ✅

Voted for Sanders in the Primary. Had nothing against Biden and thought the choice of Kamala was interesting. I love Kamala as she has more balls than most of the old goats in the senate. It was sickening to see so many of my racist Indian friends (yes, you can have friends who have views different than yours) who suddenly attached themselves to her after she became the VP choice, but will take it.  

Unlike my meh vote for Hillary, voted for this Biden/Harris ticket whole heartedly.

My original thought during the primary was that the US ship had moved too far to the right and was about to topple.. to bring it back to center, you might need to try and pull it too far to the left or it might still end up wobbling for a long time.. Biden is a moderate. He is almost a Republican in a lot of ways, compared to Bernie. Hope a moderate choice is good enough to get the US back on track! for COVID/healthcare, social justice and the economy/Foreign policy (that was my order or priorities).

I personally want us to have a decent working relationship with China and Taiwan till we can get our own Hardware (read semiconductor, chip making in general) business up and running in the US. This was at a personal level where you are thinking just about you and your family. You can ask me "isn't every choice on your ballot, your choice, where you doing the absolute selfish thing?" and I will answer immediately "No. Politics is about "people" as a collective. This is where an individual decides a collective choice. You have to see if your selfishness is goign to backfire on you badly when making choices."

When it comes to China, saying you have to stop eating out when your stove at home isn't working is not a good strategy. Subsidising farmers and not fabs is ridiculous. If Fabs were subsidized, maybe the trade war was not called for and there would be no retalliation on Pig/soy/bourbon etc.  from China and the folks who were hit in the US getting subsidies to compensate for this retaliation. This was an elaborate chess game which in my opinion was botched and turned into a game of "whack-a-mole" by someone who knows more about chess than all the grandmasters put together. 

Not absolving China of unfair practices or asking for trouble. They made a lot of bad choices in the last three years. If China had elections, Xi would have probably lost in a landslide after COVID. But they don't, so this is China's chance to do better and get back on the right side of things. Hope the Chinese "community" is able to "capitalize" on this! 

Half this country agrees Nazi's are bad, but almost all of them seem to be anti China now?! Not good for the world. Hope this situation changes. Things will never be the same again but they can get better.

Now for the rest of the choices.

Ro - House Rep District 17 ✅ 72.9% to Ritesh 27% (Ro was a reluctant vote. Given he is young, expected his votes to align with Bernie.. but was not to be. This was my lesser of two evils vote. All those ads with Ritesh being blessed by the priests was a turn off. I am not going to vote for him because the local priests endorsed the guy. Who do you think I am? an Indian version of an Evangelical Floridian? was the thought in my head)
Ann - State senate District 15 ❌ 46% to 53.9% for Cortese
Evan low -State assembly District 28 ✅ 73.1%

Skipped it (Judge vote with only one candidate in ballot...only Kim Jong Un runs an election with one name only one name on a Ballot? No.. we do it too! ) 

Govind only - Local Community College Board-  ❌ (got only 14% of the vote)

William and sudha - Local school board ❌-  the ladies who want to shut the local schools  for where we live are leading with 38 and 27% . Sudha trails by 3000 votes and Bill is a distant 4th with only 11%. (this was the big disappointment for me on local level)

Steven and kitty -Cupertino City Council ~ Meh Top 2 win.. Only Kitty made it and is in 2nd place with a 900 vote lead. Steven in 4th place and trails by 1100 votes. The surprise is the Conspiracy theorist Charlene Lee who is in 5th place and still got 2600 votes!!  Cannot call this a win. Not sure if Kitty can do what she told me before the election without the support she needs of the 5 total members.

Bosworth, Gatto and Angela- Local Sanitary district - ✅ (all the three candidates picked are leading with 33, 24 and 24% of the vote. unlikely to change)

Propositions for CA : Only 83% of votes reported so far :

14- yes ✅ fund stem cell research 50.9% (not yet called)
15-yes ❌  Change how business property taxes are assessed. Got only 48% (not yet called)

 Not sure how this helps. It would be a good thing if Apple which practically runs Cupertino could just come up with 11M $ to stop the four local schools from closing. How can schools in Cupertino close for lack of funds? More people enrolling their kids in private schools (less PE? Grade inflation, which is a term I heard for the first time two weeks ago?) This topic needs a blog post in itself! 

16-yes ❌ End ban on affirmative action. Got only 43.5% (called)
17-yes ✅ Restore parolee vote – 58.7% (called)
18-yes ❌ Allow some 17 year olds to vote 

If they turn 18 by election, they should vote in March primaries so their candidate would be on Nov ballot). Got only 44.4% (called). This is a big big disappointment where the older generation screws the younger generation. Sorry kids. I tried?!

19-no ❌ change property tax transfer rules – 51.2% (not called yet)
20-no ✅ Increase criminal penalties and limit parole – 37.8% (called)
21-yes ❌ Allow rent control expansion – got only 40% (called)
22-no ❌ Classify gig workers as contractors - got 58.5% (called)

Read a yes vote on this as an Uber win and contractor loss as they get screwed out of benefits and voted no.Wanted to make sure Uber drivers who are risking a lot during COVID times to have healthcare.  This was the most controversially worded measure that had an intent to confuse.. Maybe Yes was the right vote?  Eventually when COVID leaves and I am on planes again and get to talk to Uber drivers enroute to SFO.. will find out the ground reality.

23-no ✅ Add regulation for kidney dialysis clinics – got only 35.9% (called)

Had to ask a doctor relative for advice on this! 

24-no ❌ Amend state data privacy law – got 55.9% (called). 

This was yet another one which was worded badly. My take is folks have voted against their own interest thanks to word play on the ballot. Have one adorable friend who is a technical writer who will hopefully take to task these folks who end up writing ballot measures with an intent to deceive and confuse the voter! 

Technical writing was weaponized in this ballot! At this rate they could write a ballot measure for mandatory castration of all male babies once they reach the age of 10 and have it pass..that was my thought after reading this!

25-no✅ End use of cash bail – got only 44.1% (called)

Measures for Local region:  Voted for keeping an existing tax or add a tax, and all three passed! 

M-yes -   ✅ pass school district parcel tax .. 73% 
S-yes -   ✅ pass parcel tax for santa clara valley water district - 75%
RR-yes - ✅ Peninsula corridor 0.125% sales tax increase - 69.6%

Don't have a problem paying Taxes as long as there is accountabilty for that tax dollars and it actually ends up doing what it is supposed to do. Seeing all the signs for "please stop our school from closing" on every street corner is making me want to push for more reform on commercial properties to pay proportional taxes which would actually benefit the local community!

Overall, happy with this pass %. Makes me feel less disconnected with the rest of the community this time compared to the last time. 

Waiting for Biden/Harris and an all star team to bring some much needed sanity. In the meantime

- Social distance

- If you can't wear a mask

- wash your hands often

- Get tested if you are sick

- Exercise regularly

- Talk to people who don't agree with you

Put yourself in other peoples shoes or make a conscious attempt to engage

Bring facts and truth back! 

Let's all work on avoiding the concept of "alternate facts" as they are just "lies".