Voting is easy and only takes a moment - but the impacts may last a lifetime.

You go to the polling station, nice friendly people check your name against a list, give you a ballot, you go behind a screen, check the box, then just drop your ballot in the box on the way out. You are done! But HOW do you make your choices? Your future, and that of all of us, depends on your making the right decisions.

If you were HIRING, instead of VOTING - wouldn't you make a decision based on looking at their resume? Wouldn't you want to hire the best person for the job especially for such an important job to everyone?

Here are some suggestions for you to consider:

Making a choice of Candidate in any election may be as Easy As:  ….Looking for 3 Key Criteria 

We believe that people are apathetic about politics because they are often disappointed in their politicians once elected. We believe that maybe it would be good to have a debate about HOW we elect politicians, and not just WHO we elect. We boiled it down to 3 essentials that might help people in making their election choices.

1. Are they running for the right reasons and how can you tell? Are they sincere and do they truly care about public service - or are they just in it for themselves?  You  can tell it all by closely examing their Volunteer track record, prior to politics. Did they volunteer in thankless roles - a lot? or not?

2. Are they truly visionary and how do you tell that?  - or are they just spouting off the most popular " go along with the crowd" glib platitudes, sound bites and already most popular ideas that have been floated lately? What "unpopular ideas" were they willing to go to the wall for? Did they later turn out to be right?

3. Do they have the leadership qualities to promote an idea to the point where it becomes popular and they get the idea into action? Did they promote an unpopular or unknown idea, actually get it into action anyway, and later it turned out to be a big success? That's leadership. 

Talk is cheap. Ideas are a dime a dozen.

What is the proof that any candidate has Vision, Leadership abilities, and most importantly, is Doing it for the Right Reasons?

It’s all about Proof - the track record of what they did in the past.

For example, while almost everyone is talking in platitudes about accountability, transparency,cost control and fiscal responsibility, what have they done previously to validate they actually have the knowledge, skills and competence to produce – or is it just talk and sound bites? Here is what you should do:

 1. Vision is the ability to recognize (or invent) not just any ideas -  but BIG ideas - and well ahead of the crowd. Ideas that did or will have major impact -  and that by definition -  are NOT recognized or seen by others at the time. A candidate should have a solid track record in the past, of having spotted opportunities and trends well ahead of the crowd, before ever having entered politics.

How many big ideas and initiatives did the candidate propose, long before it was popular to do so, and before they ever went into politics?  This is the measure of Vision.

2. Leadership is the ability to get big ideas off the ground and into action. By definition, it isn’t leadership if the idea was already popular and widely accepted. A candidate should show where in the past they got a big but unpopular or unknown idea, off the ground and into action in the community -  and it paid off and was seen by many to do so. 

That is Leadership.

Insofar as those already in politics, you can have the best ideas in the world and be a visionary, but if you cannot get 8 votes to get a motion though Council, nothing changes. Whose track record shows they have successfully received 8 votes from their peers, when the issues really matter?

How many big ideas and initiatives did the candidate actually get into action prior to and during politics, starting from a time when the idea wasn’t popular or well known? The ability to successfully get an idea into Action, is the measure of leadership of a candidate.

3. Doing it for the right reasons:  is the candidate truly acting in a non-selfish manner, looking out for everyone's best interests – or just their own? The only way to tell this is to look for a past track record of selfless, roll-up-your-sleeves hard, thankless volunteer work in the community, long before they ever entered politics. Did they contribute their own cash to charities – or just that of others? Did they do hard physical work as young people on behalf of their community? Work with seniors when they didn’t have to? Do things that had no personal benefit, doing it only because it was the right thing to do? This speaks to character and  is something that shows up again and again in some people, and not in others. Look for that first among any candidate, and it will tell you about their ethics and integrity.

When they proposed big ideas in the past, who stood to benefit the most? What is the track record of substantial hard, thankless volunteer effort in the past, prior to politics? Or was it all just elite "networking?"