Stuffing Ballot Boxes

What an odd phrase this is. We've all heard this phrase ...it originated at a time when most voting was done by people literally putting their vote on a piece of paper, and putting the folded paper into a ballot box.  And stuffing the ballot box meant one person putting in more than one piece of paper.

Doesn't really apply much, today.  Many communities have electronic voting, or some sort of mechanical voting.  And in most states and most communities, there are procedures in place to ensure that each person only gets to submit one vote.

But stuffing ballot boxes has also come to mean persuading people who would otherwise not vote.. to vote.  Except -- there's really nothing wrong with that, is there?

Now, you might think that it's the upcoming election that has me thinking of this, but that's not the case.

There is a website called authorshout.com.  The website offers a number of marketing packages and plans for authors, but I'm guessing that's of little interest to most of you. However, the website also runs what they call Cover Wars.  Authors submit their covers and authorshout.com schedules the covers for a 'war'.  Each week, authorshout.com puts 10 different covers on their 'war' page.  Anybody can vote... there's no charge to vote, you're not put on a mailing list, there's no spam.  You do have to 'like' the website on your facebook, twitter, or googleplus account .. and you only have to do that once ..  but once you've done that, you can vote for your favorite cover.  Not only that, but for the entire week of each 'war', you can vote as often as you want, as long as it's been at least 24 hours since your last vote.  The Weatherman , by yours truly, is up for this week's Cover War.  It's nothing like Teapot Musings, it's a sci-fi/mystery/adventure story.  And while that might - or might not - interest you...  for purposes of the Cover War, it really doesn't matter.  All you're doing is voting for your favorite cover, out of 10.
And trust me, the cover for The Weatherman is truly amazing.
Or don't trust me.. see for yourself...

See?   Isn't that an amazing cover?

Still not convinced?  Then go to the Cover Wars and look at the other 9 contenders.  After you do, I'm hoping you'll 'vote early and vote often'.
Well, it doesn't really matter how early you vote.  And you can only vote once every 24 hours, and only through Saturday, September 24.  And while this might constitute ballot box stuffing in the sense that I'm trying to persuade you to vote for something you might have ignored, it's not really ballot box stuffing because anyone is allowed to vote, once a day, for the rest of the week.
So ---    Vote.

It's really easy, you do it from your computer, and you can even do it while drinking tea... that's how I do it.