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Here's why getting Jon Powers off the ballot was important

By Howard B. Owens

How many voters haven't paid close attention to the election, just saw the negative commercials and then decided to vote for the third-party candidate?

Blogger Lauren, from Rochester, suggests she was planning to vote for Jon Powers:

The problem is that I've been watching Rochester TV for the past two months and can recite word for word all the low budget smear campaign commercials of local political hopefuls there.

I know all about Alice Kryzan and Chris Lee and how Alice accuses Chris of sending jobs to China and only caring about his small business making money, and Chris likes to constantly remind everyone how Alice is a "liberal trial lawyer". Truth be told, I side with Alice because at least she's acquainted with the law. Chris owns some electrician business or something equally unrelated to politics and is probably just trying to get in office so he can vote against Joe the Plumber taxes and maybe lower minimum wage. If I voted in Rochester, I'd probably vote for a third party guy simply because he didn't subject me to ominously voiced-over shitty commercials for two months, and leaving me the hell alone during It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is what I truly value in a candidate.

Despite every effort to get Kryzan on the Working Families line, the courts kept Powers, who reportedly moved out of state, on it.

It will be interesting to see how many votes that line gets and then speculate whether it could have made a difference.

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