Saturday I stopped by the Badger Blog Alliance Christmas Party for just a short time to say hi to everyone before I went off to do some cross country skiing.  While I was there, Mike Gableman was there chatting it up, and among other things, passing around nomination papers for his run.  Not a problem.  I'll usually sign nomination papers for anyone to get on a ballot, whether I believe in you or not.  I think ballot access is crucial to a democracy.

What was funny though, was that several people watched me do it, and then gave this look of surprise when I wrote "NO" in the last column that said something to the effect of "Do you want to help Gableman in his campaign", or some such nonsense, that had only a single check box.  It's nothing against Gableman personally, but I don't want to be on your campaign list. 

More importantly, you should never put a single check box on a form to denote a Yes or No answer.  There should always be a separate box for Yes and No, and if you don't provide one, I will write NO next to the box.  Why?  To prevent someone from coming in later and checking it for me "because I forgot".  Think about it next time you fill out any form like that.  What happens if someone were to check a box you left unchecked after you hand it in?  Would anyone be able to tell?

This has been a public service announcement from The World According to Nick.