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Did high rates of ACEs and CPTSD cause a difference in visual attention that resulted in a voting anomaly in Broward County, FL?
 
According to an article written for the Washington Post by Dana Chisnell and Whitney Quesenbery, co-founders of the Center for Civic Design, "In Broward County, according to MCI Maps, about 3.7 percent (30,896) of voters skipped voting for U.S. senator — as much as 2.5 percent more than in most other counties, and a lot more than neighboring counties. In fact, more people in Broward County voted for the commissioner of agriculture and county CFO than for their U.S. senator.”
 
The article points out: "In observing hundreds of people mark ballots in our research, we know that voters often skip reading instructions. This year’s long wait times to get a ballot surely made many people rush to mark their votes even faster than usual; the design of this ballot did not help voters see where the instructions ended and the contests started. It’s likely that many voters simply did not see the box to mark for senator.”
 
But perhaps there’s a confounding reason. Because our community suffers, as do many, from having a large number of persons with high ACE scores, historical trauma, and complex PTSD, perhaps this also changes how they process visual and other information. Is this possible to prove? Would either one of these two approaches get at the answer? 
 
1. Gather two groups, one having high ACE scores and one not, then have them fill out the ballots.
 
2. Compare the ACE scores of people in Broward who skipped the Senate vote with those that didn’t. 
 
Or is there another way? Let me know what you think. 
 
- Thank you Jane Stevens for your sage advice and help in rewriting and for all you've done in bringing awareness of ACE's.
 
Michael Sirbola
Golden Rule Schools
Sirbolamichael@gmail.com
954-773-6716
 
Jane Stevens
Founder, publisher
ACEsConnection.com
ACEsTooHigh.com
ACEs = Adverse Childhood Experiences
707-495-1112
jstevens@acesconnection.com
 
Original Post
Polarization induced by malevolent enemy governments and domestic patriot-terrorists has affected all of us imperceptibly at a neurological socio-cultural scale.
 
A number of well documented examples of alterations in our sensory, emotional and mental processing result not from a high ACE score inasmuch as a high ACE score is not a disease but vastly increases the likelihood of a whole set of mental issues that are often loosely put onto the shoebox of trauma and stress related illnesses.
 
Evolutionarily the consequence of stress and fear can be fight or flight and much of what we call illness is actually perfect adaptation to a damaged world - it is arguably not the PTSD sufferers who are damaged, it is the world.
 
A high ACE score is a lead prognosticator for concomitant diagnoses of trauma and stress related conditions which exist to help us survive - such as not philosophizing overly long upon noticing an unusually large saber-tooth cat or a suspicious person following oneself instead of running away. When in dangerous environments we revert to our "little minds" that process information faster in terms of black and white without thought to grey areas. Our creativity, empathy, altruism and urge to cooperate are lessened when in dangerous unsafe environments of scarcity as compared to safe abundant environments where cooperation and creativity will enable greater use of available resources and survival of both individual and group.
 
This is us. This is why BOTH quickly visually scanning past a vote on a ballot AND not noticing one hasn't voted on one of the two most contentious races are entirely congruent with the expectation of a high ACE score, at least in theory.
 
Fortunately it may be fairly simple to test these hypotheses to make a conclusive determination. 
 
There's a much larger point that may be possible to be made here that has nothing to do with ballot design or even with politics - we may have given a quick simple CPTSD/ACE-score evaluation to a whole county en-mass, akin to a doctors tapping of ones knee to gauge the involuntary reflex when struck there. 
 
Further, we may find that Broward is in a pathological state where ACE scores increase due to behavioral transmission having surpassed the epidemic point where the levels are self-sustaining and increasing. 
 
There is a case to be made under voting protections for the physically and mentally challenged/different. Regardless regardless of the merit of any such legal actions in regard the Broward ballot issues, a hugely important outcome will be to see a vast majority of the populace at learn of ACE tests and CPTSD and the deep pathology we clearly suffer to be so accepting of the fact that 1 in 3 children is neglected or abused! We are clearly NOT Ok!
 
We are ill and unaware of its true extent:
 
Were a madman to toss acid into the face of a random child in a random town once a month, after a few months the entire planet would be screaming for the madman's capture! To abuse and neglect a child is to scar his or her mind instead of their face, just as grotesquely, but hidden.
 
ONE IN THREE CHILDREN ABUSED or NEGLECTED in affected communities is *NOT* Okay!
 

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