In one of many memorable “Seinfeld” episodes, George Costanza desperately maneuvers to continue receiving an unemployment check rather than focusing his energy on gainful employment. He makes up a fake business, claims he constantly “looks and listens” for jobs, and even offers to date the rather unpleasant daughter of the unemployment official, hoping he can continue riding the joblessness benefits train.
In his corresponding stand-up act, Jerry comments on George’s misplaced energy. “This guy has never worked this hard in his life to keep this thing going,” he says. “If they had any idea the effort and energy that he is expending to avoid work, I’m sure they’d give him a raise.”
George’s shenanigans provide a humorous storyline. But real-life situations of someone using all of their energy to distract you from reality rarely take on such a funny tone.
Take Pennsylvania election officials, for example.
On May 28, after the Pennsylvania primary, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt commented that “[e]lections have never been more safe and secure with a voter-verifiable paper-ballot record of every vote that’s cast that is used in not one but two audits after every election to ensure the tabulated results are accurate,” he wrote on X, quoting himself as he was cited in an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
But a survey by AP-NORC at the University of Chicago just last summer found that only 44 percent of the American public “has a great deal or quite a bit of confidence that the votes
