Comments
ALPERN AT LARGE - Spare me the nonsense of “we’re careful and thorough”. We’re not—we just want to make sure one side of the political aisle always wins.
Spare me the malarkey of “we want to make sure every possible vote can count”. No, we don’t—we just want to make sure every possible vote on one side of the political aisle is counted.
Spare me the garbage about “people should have the right to vote on Election Day, so long as their ballot is postmarked on Election Day. We have election drop boxes aplenty, so anyone who wants to vote on Election Day remotely can do so conveniently and quickly.
Spare me the hocus-pocus of “we want secure and careful ballot-counting, even if it takes a long time”.
The math and odds and likelihood of all of California and L.A.’s elections always swinging sharply in the days and weeks AFTER the election in the Democratic/Left-leaning direction and reversing just about every Republican win does anything BUT ensure confidence and credibility in our voting system.
And most importantly:
1. Covid is over, so that if our voting populace wants to remotely vote by election day, we have drop boxes that will guarantee being counted by the end of election day.
2. If one votes by mail less than three (3) business/mail days prior to the election—and particularly on the day of the election, then it will be guaranteed to be received by the vote counters after the end of election day.
3. The voters have the right to secure elections, and the “you can’t prove it” just doesn’t pass the smell test.
Do I think Spencer Pratt would have made a good Mayor?
Hard to say—certainly he couldn’t have done any worse than Karen Bass.
I frankly wanted Rick Caruso, who cowardly bailed right before the election, and then I REALLY wanted Austin Beutner, but he was overwhelmed with personal tragedy so awful I can’t help but bemoan his suffering (not the City’s, but his family’s suffering).
Spencer Pratt was a gadfly and an outsider who wanted to point out that the homeless, street people, and socialists had more rights than the rest of us, and these election results pretty much vindicate him.
All the votes that came out overwhelming for Councilmember Raman over Mayor Bass and Mr. Pratt at the last second…well, it just doesn’t pass the smell test.
And everyone reasonable knows this doesn’t pass the smell test!
So spare me, spare us all, the crap about how “careful” we are here in the City of the Angels. With COVID over, and with ample drop boxes all over the city and state for voting the day before or on Election Day, we have no businesses allowing ANY “voter dumps” of people who all seem to vote the same way.
In other words, vote by mail has no business being allowed three days, and perhaps seven days, prior to election day—particularly for a postal service as inherently inefficient as the one we have.
Use the drop boxes if you’ve waited too long.
But socialist and other democratic volunteers running up and down LA to pick up ballots from only certain groups of voters (who may not have been inclined to vote if not confronted) isn’t democracy.
That’s socialism!
Oh, yeah, that’s right…
Well…we’ll see what the FBI and supreme court have to say about the legality and constitutionality of LA’s recent election.
And it would have been nice to have councilmember Raman win over Spencer Pratt in a clean, pass-the-smell-test kind of way. It didn’t, and she’ll always have a stain on her credibility.
But as to who i would recommend for a vote in LA for mayor, if it were Karen Bass versus Nithya Raman?
It would be the same as when Andrew Cuomo ran against Zohran Mamdani—no reasonable person to vote for, so we might as well (as did New York city) vote for the socialist who might (or might not) learn a little, grow up a little, and then figure out how to represent the people.
But no one should vote for Karen Bass after she let this city burn down, figuratively and financially and morally.
We’re the laughingstock, so we might as well have a socialist with an “asterisk mark” next to her name get a shot at the mayor’s office and let Los Angeles get a taste of what Chicago and New York city has done themselves and their people.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
