Election - 选举

The mid-term election in the US was an earth-shaking, and despite the low turn out rate, it was still an exercise of voters' choices, however unsatisfactory, or not.

Ever since I gained my US citizenship, I voted for every election.

When I lived in China, I voted only once - still in School.  On the ballots, there were several names nominated for the local level representatives, who actually were mere electors at the lowest level and they would elect higher level electors, who they might be were only revealed later to those elected.  They would vote representatives to the municipal level who then would vote members of parliament representing the province.
Therefore, it was safe to say that the MPs had almost no connection to the regular voters.

Some of those people on the ballots were from my school and others not.  None were allowed to run a campaign.  They were chosen and nominated.  Five people were nominated for five slots.

There were a very brief biographies of those "candidates" and they all claimed to "Adhere to the Four Cardinal Principles" - must adhere to the socialist road; must uphold the the proletarian dictatorship; Third, must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party; Fourth, and must uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought.

Beyond that, we knew nothing about their stands on any other issues.

I voted no to every single candidates in the only "election" I participated before I left China.


美國最近经历了翻天覆地的中期選舉中。儘管投票率低，不理想，選民仍然行使的他们的权利。

自從我獲得了美國國籍，我每次都投票選舉。

當我住在中國是，我只参与过一次選舉 - 我仍然在學校上学。在選票上，列有幾個提名為地方一級的代表的名字，他们其实是最低级的選舉人民，將由他們選出更高層次的選民，至于那些更高層次的選民可能是誰，当时我们无从知晓。他們會選舉市一級代表，市一級代表再决定誰將代表全省成为人民代表大会代表（國會議員）。

因此，人們可以說，國會議員幾乎和普通選民毫无联系。

在選票上的人有些是從我的學校来，其他人则不是。他们不可以搞競選活動。他們仅仅被選中和提名。五人被提名“竞争”五個位置。

每个“候选人”有一個非常簡短的傳記，他們都聲稱“堅持四項基本原則” - 必須堅持社會主義道路，必須堅持無產階級專政，必須堅持共產黨的領導，必須堅持馬克思列寧主義，毛澤東思想。

除此之外，我們对他们任何其他問題的立場一無所知。

我对每一個候選人都投了反对票。那是我在離開之前參加的唯一一次“选举”。