500 Page SF Elections Paper Ballot Book - How to Get it E-Mailed & Get Spammed Too

Election Day comes back on November 5th to San Francisco, and while it usually means we vote for candidates and proposals for propositions, you'll be getting something huge in the mail: Your ballot book.

If you are familiar with ballot books, it's basically what every person registered to vote gets in the mail prior to every election.  The books contain the procedures and policies about voting, candidate statements, proposition statements, and plenty more.  In most cases, the booklets are no more than a quarter inch thick using very thin paper to cut down on weight and postage costs.

But for the November 5th elections, your booklet will be roughly 400-500 pages, with a huge chunk going towards a local proposition for a luxury condo property at 8 Washington.  By law, the city has to publish the text of the referendum and that contains hundreds of pages that likely a majority of citizens will simply throw into their recycling bin.

What does that mean to me?  If I receive that, I just look at the sample ballot and maybe the briefing of each ballot measure, than simply dump it in the recycling bin.

But... there is a choice for us voters, we can ask the city to skip on the paper ballot books and review it online.  When you opt-in for electronic ballot boks, you get an e-mail from the city that gives you the link to the ballot book online.

It's a great idea, help the city go green by cutting back on the paper printing, especially when your ballot book will be the size of a telephone book.

However, there's a dark side to giving the city your e-mail address:

"The email address provided on this form will be kept confidential pursuant to Section 6254.4 of the California Government Code and Section 2194 of the California Elections Code, and legally may be provided to a candidate for office, a ballot measure committee, or other person for election, scholarly, journalistic, political, or governmental purposes, as determined by the Secretary of State." (Source: SF Elections opt-out paper ballot book online sign-up)

What this basically tells me is that if I give the city government my e-mail address to cut down on paper waste, there is the possibility that political candidates and proposition pro/opponents will be harassing me via e-mail telling me to "vote for this" and "my opponent is a scumbag?"

Like I need more junk mail in my inbox.  I'm already sick of the phone calls at 8:45PM.  Thanks politicians for passing an elections law that allows you to spam the crap out of my e-mail box; you voted for it because you liked it so you can tell us who or what to vote for, but for us citizens, we hate it.

Here's an alternative the city could do, but it will cost some money: People can opt-out of a paper ballot, but they would instead get a post card telling citizens to visit the elections website to obtain the electronic ballot book; by doing it this way, we don't have to give out our e-mail address.

Akit's Thoughts on the Most Recent Election

I'm not all too fond with politics.  I get tired of watching the morning news and a good portion is covering the everything from ballot measures to candidates trying to get into office.  Whatever political junk mail I get, it  goes straight into the recycling bin, phone calls gets immediately hung up, and doorbell ringers will get no answer because I turned off the power to the doorbell.

I'm personally happy its all over.  Can life get back to normal?

Here's my thoughts on some of the political candidates and propositions that was on the most recent ballot:

City Supervisors: As I recently moved from the Outer Richmond to the Inner Sunset, there was no supervisor candidate to vote for.  I personally don't have any favorites as I think most of the board is a bunch of idiots and clowns for passing legislation such as the Happy Meal toy ban.  As for the supervisor candidate volunteers on election day standing in the medians at the St. Francis Circle intersection during rush hour, they were just inches from a car making a wrong last minute lane change and killing the volunteers.

State Assembly: Really?  Phil Ting won?  Never was a fan of him since he used city public funding for a failed bid for becoming mayor of San Francisco; some say he used his failed candidacy as leverage to take a punch at going for the State Assembly seat.  He can shove that "reset" button up his ass.

Proposition A for City College: Okay, so it passed.  As City College is in fiscal shambles and is on the verge of losing their accreditation, if I see another ballot measure in the next few years asking for more money, don't expect my support.  Manage your money and regain the trust of the citizens first.

Proposition F for the research to consider to drain out Hetch Hetchy: Good this lost with 77.4% saying no.  Losing Hetch Hetchy's water would be devastating to San Francisco, especially when we have some of the best tap water in the nation and the hydro power generates electricity for Muni's trolley buses and light rail.

Proposition 30 for tax money for schools: I work for the higher education sector and this is needed to keep our public education running and open for our students.

Proposition 37 for genetically modified labels: I had to compare labeling food as GMO to California's gasoline.  The state's gasoline is a one of a kind blend (pollution control bla bla bla); this means we can't import gasoline from other states that don't comply with standards, and therefore our gasoline costs more to purchase at the pump with limited competition.  If we were the only state requiring GMO labeling, we'd be in the same situation as manufacturers of food would have to produce special items just to comply with California law, and that means passing the cost to the consumer.

That's my thoughts on these ballot measures.

Why are we Ignoring the Alleged SF Mayor Elections Fraud?

It's been a little over a month since the November elections day and we have a new mayor, but there's still a big dark cloud hovering over City Hall. Many of you may not have thought about it or just decided to ignore it after election day and all the ballots was counted up...

I'm going to stand up and ask the question RIGHT NOW:
What ever happened to the alleged voter fraud?

You've seen the video, you've read it on news sources like SFGate/Chronicle, Huffington Post, and SFist; and a lot of you were angry.

--------------------

Here's the whole story: On Friday, October 21st, an "independent expenditure committee" that is supporting Ed Lee for Mayor, decided to set-up a makeshift area in the heart of Chinatown on Stockton Street. Video footage from SFGate and a detailed report from the Bay Citizen claims these volunteers shows the volunteers assisting the citizens fill out their ballots.

The committee claims they did not do anything illegal, while outside observers claims when the local press was watching what they were doing, the volunteers hid the ballots (hinting that a possible crime may be in progress), and a person claimed the volunteers was filling out the ballots for the citizens.

Another accusation was the completed and sealed absentee ballots was "then collected the marked ballots in plastic bags" (SF Appeal, October 24th).

A Lot of Questions to Ask
I'm deeply concerned and I think the people of this fine city should know, what, if anything has our local, state, or federal government has done to investigate this alleged voter fraud?

And why wasn't this fully investigated PRIOR to election day?

If you are familiar with elections laws and you look at the allegations of the independent committee doing these alleged law violations, here's what laws they may have broken:

1. Having someone else (other than the registered voter), fill out the ballot without the voter explicitly saying what they want to vote for. Assisting someone to fill out a ballot when the voter says what they want to vote for and the voter verifies the ballot is totally legal; having someone vote for you (e.g. voting twice in one election) is illegal.
   
2. Collecting absentee ballots in an improper manner. The envelope clearly states that only the voter or a member of the household can collect the ballot, and can mail it (prior to election day) or hand deliver it to a polling place. If the allegations are true, the independent committee should have never collected completed and sealed absentee ballots as they are not members of the voter's household.

Akit's Opinions
Even though I dislike Ed Lee as he was a replacement for Newsom (whom I also dislike), I need to make myself clear: Since this "independent expenditure committee" is not related to the [real] Ed Lee for Mayor campaign, I'm not painting a target on Ed Lee; only the fools stupid enough to pull such a stunt in public and in the middle of Chinatown.

Based on the number of votes for Ed Lee after the instant run-off process, voiding the ballots of the alleged ballot violations would unlikely change anything, but that still doesn't ignore the fact that a possible crime may have been committed.

If the government ignores election fraud allegations, it violates the integrity of the elections process because you let people slide away and possibly let it happen again in the future. Enforcement should be tough because voting is the only way any citizen, rich or poor, can change the way our city, state, and nation operates with a simple stroke of a pen.

The integrity is what gains the trust of the people. The California Lottery does random stings to see if their retailers are trustworthy because if you didn't know you had a winning $1,000 ticket and the retailer says you didn't in the name of greed, would you trust the state lottery when you found out the retailer was eventually arrested for grand theft? The same goes with elections fraud: if people are breaking the rules, people won't trust voting; that's one of our most sacred rights in our Constitution today.

When I read the news stories from various news sources, I felt the allegations was extremely troubling. My comments on SFGate and SFist was very clear: regardless if it is declared legal or illegal of what the committee did, it was purely immoral and unethical. If someone is out on the streets to help people fill in their ballots in a legal manner, it shouldn't be a volunteer that is supporting a specific candidate or pro/negative proposition, it should be someone NEUTRAL.

I've made my point. People of San Francisco, it's time to speak up and demand your government for answers on the alleged voter fraud.

Akit Voted - His Opinions on the Results

Voting, a time for us citizens to make serious choices, and tell politicians we like them or hate them with the stroke of a pen; instead of opening our wallets.

It turned out a lot of my picks on the ballot didn't turn out the way I wanted it to go. So here's my views about it:

Mayor Ed Pak, I meant Rose Lee, sorry, Ed Lee wins
Great... just great. If you read my twitter feed, I don't like the guy. I didn't put him as any of my choices on the ranked choice ballot. What's so bad about the ranked choice ballot is if you pick three candidates and they don't make it into the last round after most people are eliminated, basically, your vote doesn't count for one of the last two survivors.

District Attorney Gascon wins
Not a bad choice. But I wouldn't pick Fazio because he was the lawyer for Ed Jew whom is now enjoying time in a federal prison camp.

Sheriff Ross wins
Interesting, real interesting. Not much to say, but from meeting him in person, he's a nice guy.

Proposition A wins
Bonds to refurbish schools is okay for me. If I have kids, I'd send them to SF public schools and are well maintained and not at risk of falling down in an earthquake.

Proposition B wins
Fixing potholes with bond money. I voted no because we never need bonds to fix our streets. Shouldn't the extra money saved from Proposition G (a.k.a. "the public seeks revenge on Muni employees") and money from the general fund be enough to fix our streets?

Proposition C beats D
Oh god. I picked D over C because we could have saved an extra $300 million in ten years by going with D. Hey, $300M could keep our streets nice and smooth instead of potholes every day. But give some credit to Adachi, if he didn't speak up and demand pension reform, proposition C wouldn't pass.

Propositions E and F
Annoying propositions about inactive laws and "campaign consultants." Nobody really cares.

Proposition G Loses
Raise the sales tax by 0.5% to 9%. Um, that just encourages me to shop more in Daly City and Colma where the tax is a nice 8.25%!!!!!!!! I totally voted no on this one.

Proposition H Wins Loses
The school district assignment proposition barely wins loses with just 115 votes making the difference. The controversy about neighborhood schools has always been a hot topic in this city, and I'm going to bet within five years, this issue is going to be raised again.


I love voting... it's an opportunity for average folks to give the middle finger to the city government.

Dear Candidates for Mayor of San Francisco: Stop Calling Me!

Dear Candidates for Mayor of San Francisco:

You suck. That's right, you suck.

Why do you suck? You call my house to bother me to ask for their votes or do some touch tone phone survey to ask who I would vote for mayor.

Getting calls from your volunteer scumbags telling me who to vote for is just annoying, and I know that you are robocalling me because if I answer my phone and say "hello" and hear silence for about two or three seconds means I'm about to be bothered by another jackass.

To give you a good example, here's the last phone call I got at 8:45PM (yeah, 8:45PM) last night:

I'm quietly reading a book in bed and I get a phone call from some volunteer for David Chiu for Mayor. I quickly interrupt the jackass who disrupted my peaceful time by saying: "Now that you called, I just changed my mind, I won't vote for him." I hung up my phone without letting the guy get one word after that.

Here's a fact, it's NOT FUN to call me. Anyone who dares to ask me to vote for someone or something will get a rude reaction. Another time when someone called me, I said, "is that you Jesus?" then hung up. It's worse if you call me after 8PM because I'm busy enjoying watching a good TV show, writing my blog, or just reading a good book.

I've been also getting robocalls asking me to use my touch tone phone to pick who I would vote for mayor. They gave me nine options (press 1 through 9), instead, I picked option zero: "Get the fuck off my phone."

Here's other annoyances I hate about election time:

• You folks like mailing junk to my house on who I should vote for? Here's what I do: It goes straight into the recycling bin. Oh, Alioto wants to be mayor? Cram it; into the blue bin you go. Stop wasting trees.
• Mayoral candidate cronies (possibly paid ones) who abuse twitter by retweeting every single tweet from the candidate's account. The worst offender: Phil Ting's and his ResetSF (Reset San Francisco) account. Here's one of their "political consultants" and another one. Makes using Hootsuite and other third party programs to keep tabs on hashtags like #muni a nightmare.
  
• And while I'm on the topic of Reset San Francisco, how many of you actually knows that Reset San Francisco is actually a website for Phil Ting to be Mayor? It's not as obvious as other candidate's websites; ResetSF's website mentions it in very little print on the bottom of the site. If it wasn't a political candidate's website, it would win awards for being a pretty good blog, but because it's a candidate's website, it's just using his cronies to write twisted articles, like this one full of incorrect facts about Clipper. Even I put out a tweet asking people if they knew if that website is for a candidate and some of the reaction I got back was: "agreed," and "I don't think most know he's even running."
  

So to all you political candidates who wants to be Mayor of this city: Stop calling me, mailing me, and cramming Twitter. I've got better things to do.

Disrespectfully,
Akit

UPDATE: [Retracted due to error]

My Write-In Candidates for Mayor of San Francisco

I'm no fan of politics, basically I hate politics. I feel that many people who get elected are scumbags, and I've openly admitted it when a politician got in my face at a Farmers Market and I yelled out: "YOU ARE SCUM!"

I thought for laughs, who would I vote for Mayor of San Francisco? No, I'm not picking some person off the ballot, I would do a write-in. Here's my choices:

1. Tony Bennett. Who else but the man who sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco?"
2. Brian Wilson. The beard can kick ass any day.
3. R. Lee Erney. The sarge can scream and make life a living hell for those who pisses him off.
4. SF's World Famous Bushman. He'd scare the crap out of the BOS.
5. Frank Chu. He doesn't have to say a word; he just flashes his sign and people understand.
6. Any person from that TV show "Extreme Couponing." We can save millions on city toilet paper and motor oil for Muni buses with just a bunch of coupons.
7. Stone Cold Steve Austin (pro wrestling). Drinking on the job, doesn't play nice with the press, and does stunners on the Board of Supervisors.
8. Michael Tilson Thomas, SF Symphony. He can bring his symphony with him to press meetings and play dramatic music when he says there's a budget problem, and soothing music to calm the public.
9. The Cast of Wicked. Glinda and Elphaba doesn't need to rely on gasoline or city owned cars, they can save tons by riding on a bubble or broomstick. They could also cast a spell on Muni to run on-time and under budget.
10. Dirty Harry. Okay, it's a movie character, but we need a guy who can run this city with a "I don't give a shit" attitude.
11. Emperor Norton. He might be dead, but fining people for calling SF "Frisco" is respect in my books.

What's your suggestions? Leave it in the comments.

Update: Answer to Why Political Ads are Not on SF's Lampposts

Happy election day everyone. I hope you have already voted or will do so today.

In a recent blog entry, I mentioned it was really nice to not see those political ads on the city's lampposts. I never really knew why the practice has stopped and I assumed it was because it was just a waste of money with all that paper and labor needed to put it up on every single post in the city.

Just recently, a blog entry in SFGate's "City Insider" was talking about Proposition "B" and it mentioned about rules regarding the posting of bills or ads on city lampposts. They also provided a link to the Department of Public Works website about the city code regulating postings.

In summary of the city's policy, the city does not permit any signage larger than a letter size sheet of paper, and this includes political signage. Here's more info from the DPW's site:

To legally place a sign on a utility pole, it must:

• Be less than 11 inches in height
• No higher than 12 feet from the ground
• Conform to the shape of the pole
• Be attached with tape or other non-adhesive material such as twine, string or other non-metal banding material
• Include a legible posting date in the lower right hand corner
• Be removed after 10 days, if the sign is promoting a date specific event
• Be removed within 70 days of the posting date
• Not be installed on historic street light poles, traffic signal poles or traffic directional sign poles.

Good work SF, no more eyesores on our lampposts! Now, let's start getting after the other political annoyances like doorknob hangers, robo calls on my home phone, calling my cell phone (which is VERY ILLEGAL), and all that junk mail you keep mailing me weeks after I voted absentee.

Just mail me a voter information booklet; that's all I need to vote with. I don't read the paid arguments section.

Isn't it Nice There's No Political Ads on SF's Lampposts?

In one week will be election day for California, and specifically in San Francisco. There's a lot of items for people to vote for, including a new Governor, school boards, BART board, judges, and of course, those crazy propositions ranging from pension plans to the state budget.

Other than the political junk mail (that goes straight into my recycle bin without reading it) and the bothersome phone calls from idiots saying "vote for me!" and "my rival is a scumbag," there's one bright spot in this upcoming elections.

That bright spot, there's no political ads posted on San Francisco's lampposts. Yeah, you know those ones that are bright in colors, full of stupid slogans, and makes it a total eyesore when driving.

Not long ago, those political ads polluted our thoroughfares of our streets, and every single lamppost on Geary Boulevard was crammed with things saying vote for this, and don't vote for that. There were people who had to park their fancy cherry picker trucks and block our streets to post this crud, and there were some random people deciding to cut down ads off the poles of candidates or propositions they didn't support.

Maybe those folks are getting the message, stop wasting your money on printing and wasting all that paper, and get a bunch of volunteer slaves to hound your ass on the phone and mail you garbage.

I am a permanent absentee voter; I vote immediately when I get the ballot, so you jackasses can leave me the fuck alone.

PSA: Are you Registered to Vote in California's November 2nd Elections?

Are you ready to vote in the November 2nd elections? It's one of the finest privileges a citizen of the United States is entitled to. We use the power of voting to elect people to office and pick if we approve or disapprove of propositions for items such as funding, capital projects, and our environment.

For this blog post, I won't take any sides and remain neutral.

I advise you to read the ballot measures carefully before saying "yes," "no," or not voting (abstaining). It is best to review each ballot item on the card/screen, then vote after reading all of them.

• If you are not registered to vote, visit the California Secretary of State's website to register to vote. The last day to register is October 18th, and if mailed, must be postmarked by this date.
• If you are registered to vote, but need to check your status, click here for a list of county government websites or the proper phone number to call.
• If you are unable to vote in-person, consider voting early. An absentee ballot (vote by mail) is the easiest way. If you live in San Francisco and registered for an absentee ballot, you should have received yours; but if you did not choose an absentee ballot, use the local elections book's back page and mail it in to request for one. The best part, the city pays for the return postage!
  

For once, an election without political phone calls

Yesterday's elections must have been one of the most quietest around here in San Francisco, mostly because the local news press didn't cover it as extensively as other elections in the past...

One of the best things about yesterday's elections: NO POLITICAL PHONE CALLS.

Isn't it so nice when you don't get harassed at 7PM at night after eating a tasty dinner and getting some phone call from an annoying jackass on a recording telling you to vote for Proposition "F-U?" At the last election, I got calls from the SEIU from a live person, and I told them to buzz-off, I was watching Jeopardy!

It's a little sad that our federal government banned those "robocalls," but allowed political messages to be excluded. That sucks. Why doesn't the FTC give us citizens the right to opt-out of political phone calls on the do-not-call list?

Lastly, I did get a few of those annoying mailers telling me to vote for Proposition "D," but I decided to throw those straight into my shredder without reading it. What a waste of trees.

Does San Francisco Need a Special Election?

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering to raise taxes in order to fix the budget shortfall the city suffering through (like $576 million). But in order to pass some real serious taxes, the Board of Supervisors chose to have a special election. Eight wanted the special election, while the other three did not.

So the resolution passed, but Newsom did not like the idea. As expected, he vetoed the Board of Supervisor's resolution, but this news report shows that the Board have enough votes to override the Mayor's veto and therefore the "special election" will happen on June 2, 2009.

Although the news report mentions that there is nothing yet on the ballot, rumor has it that the sales tax will go up 0.05%. This sounds a little bit disturbing, and just another incentive to head off to a different county when buying a big ticket item (car, mega size TV, etc.).

Here's my view about the pros and cons of holding a special election:

Pro:

• If voters pass more taxes, this can help the budget shortfall.

Sorry, it's the only pro I can think of.

Cons and doubts:

• How much will it cost to hold this election? How many millions?
• If the voters decide to reject all tax hike proposals, the Board of Supervisors better start having a low profile, because I smell a recall!
• How much more in taxes will we be paying to the city?
• Can passing new taxes cause more harm than good? Example: Business may close down and move to a county with lower tax rates.
• Once the economy goes back up, will the tax rates go back down to today's rates?

Just something to think about folks!

Cool things about Election Day in San Francisco

I have to say that yesterday's election day was historic for not just the United States of America, but also for San Francisco.

Of course, we have a new President-elect and that happened at the stroke of 8PM when I was watching KTVU and Fox News broke the word to me, then I flip the channels rapidly and all the news networks announced it literally seconds apart.

Once thing I did notice, the over-the-air digital TV reception was good during the results, went sour when Obama went on the stage. I wonder if our country's investment in the new digital TV equipment is ready for something extreme like that. It's like cable internet services, everyone gets a piece of the pie, but if there's too many people in the pie, the service goes slow.

Back to San Francisco...

I think it's really interesting that we had an extreme turnout. I work at San Francisco State University and the line at the residence hall community was huge! I heard that SFSU's polling place is the largest precinct (based on population) in the entire city of San Francisco. The line was at least 100 feet long and two to three people wide.

And all those freebies! I got myself some free ice cream from Ben and Jerry's too.

I think the one big thing about our ballots this year is that there was a lot of material to vote on, and that may be a reason why the lines were so long at places like SFSU. I live in the Outer Richmond District, and other than voting for the Presidency, state and local propositions, school and college board members, and a judge; I had to also vote for a supervisor. That's four ballot cards with most of them using the back side as well. That took me at least an hour to do an absentee ballot.

(Big tip: When you get your ballot book, read it, then use the practice sheet inside to fill it out so you can quickly do your official ballot later)

In other news, San Francisco's "George W. Bush sewage plant" won't exist. Rats. I thought that was some amusing stuff. But the 30% of San Franciscan's who voted "yes" can still call it that unofficially. Could we change the Main Library to be named the "George W. Bush "leberry?""

All I can say now is, what a relief that this is all over. No more political bickering over the news, no more political ads on the radio during every commercial break, and no more killing trees to put those hanging ads on my house's gate.

I forgot to mention, I gave the finger to a person holding a "Yes on 8" sign when I was driving towards Costco. Discrimination in this country, and especially laws that prohibit people based on their ethnicity, race, skin color, and sexual orientation is just wrong. If prop. 8 passes, this will be one of the worst human rights issue in this nation in recent history (although many of us acknowledge that the Japanese internment camps was the worst human and civil rights violations in American history).

Can't Wait for Election Day to be Over - No More Advertising!

It is always great that we as Americans can use our constitutional right to vote, especially for the Presidency of our country and for big issues, especially Proposition 8 in California.

But the best part after all the hype... no more advertising of "vote for this" and "vote for that" on the phone, television and radio commercials, and by mail.

It makes me sick that when I turn-on the radio to my favorite station, all I hear during every commercial break is to say yes to this and say no to that. Then it's also on your TV too! I want to watch the Simpsons in peace dammit! And if I collected all the political ads I got in the mail, it would be a couple of inches thick. I got ten in one day, and I don't read any of them.

So celebrate my fellow Americans... no more sick to your stomach, vomit political ads to bother you any more.

Now... how long until the news stations cut-off their elections coverage and replace it with normal TV broadcasting?

Fed Up with Political Advertising - LEAVE ME ALONE

An open letter to any political group, organization, and individuals involved in political advertising:

Please STOP telling me to vote for somebody, some state or local proposition, or participate in some kind of political survey.

Why am I telling you to stop? It's so simple that if you don't understand it, maybe you should ship your dumb ass back to college or get your GED:

1. I've already voted.
2. I've voted by mail.
3. I CAN'T REVERSE MY VOTE.

Maybe there should be a law that if you register as a permanent absentee that citizens should stop getting daily advertising in the mail, and harassing phone calls once the ballots are mailed out. If people have already voted via mail or visiting City Hall, what a waste of trees and people's time to mail crap and call you.

And I honestly don't care if you are from some labor union telling me that somebody is an evil person and should not be voted. I don't give a crap what you say. I vote for who I want, I don't care if my votes support one political party over another because I vote for what I feel is RIGHT.

And out of personal experience, I used to work for a polling place and a lady asked for some help filling out her ballot. She pulled out this card she got from her mail that told her to vote for such and such candidate and proposition, and I was saying to myself: "you have to be fucking kidding." If you can't think about the truth and consequences of your vote by looking at an ad telling you to vote for, maybe you should not vote.

And especially for any of you who call people for hours on end... JUST STOP CALLING ME. I'm really serious, DON'T CALL. I am about this close to getting a lawyer to cram a lawsuit so far up your butt, or demanding to speak to your supervisor for your resignation. And you call at the most obscure hours too, like when I'm EATING DINNER. Hey, I just want to watch the Simpson's and eat my dinner, leave me be.

And another thing, how about those automated messages? I think there' s a law where if you hang up, the message must stop after five seconds. Well the last few annoying ass calls I received DIDN'T HANG UP IN 5 SECONDS. And how about saying at the beginning of the message: "If you do not want to listen to this message and NEVER BE CALLED AGAIN, PRESS ONE." Simple, easy, and bother free. Or how about for every message you leave, you at least say "This is a political message," then I can simply hang up.

And for all you jackasses out there: I shred any mailed political ads immediately without reading them. I may just consider blacking out my address and mailing it back to you in big black letters in saying "go fuck yourself." Phone calls get the standard treatment (for now), a pissed off Asian American guy ready to cuss like a sailor.

So to summarize this, LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.