Vote like your life depends on it!

That's what they say. It is true too. In our town, though, it is more true than most. Voting is mandatory, our elected overlords preferring to shift the blame when things go awry. Everyone is automatically registered to vote from the moment they leave the birth-pod. Before they take their first breath the unfiltered atmosphere even. As they are conveyed out of the pod they get chipped with their ID, life-force balance, locator device, health diagnostics, and so on - Their ID number entered into the system.

Voting is not actually allowed until age of maturity is reached. They want the life-force at maximum. There is more substance that way.

The goal is to vote for the majority. What you believe or not is generally irrelevant. You have a better chance for survival if you pay attention to the polls. If you voted for the loser, you were as good as a lump of meat. If you were the loser, you better have a good freezer. It is a dog-eat-dog world after all, but without any dogs.

It was not too hard, most years, to guess the majority win. Sponsors were plastered in micro-LED lights traveling under the candidates skin, turning them into a walking billboard. The candidate with the most money was generally the winner. Only once was their an underdog. They ended up just filing their voters through a liquid nitrogen booth. They got about half-way through before the election committee learned one the system had been hacked, and the winner's votes had been bought. The hacker was caught, of course. They were hacked to pieces, slowly, while on life support with sense enhancers. They televised the entire process, on every channel. It was effective. No one tampered with the elections again.

They claim it is for population control. They claim it is so the people are compliant. There are sheep who think more independently.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.