Why, oh why, oh why are important votes by government representatives allowed to go through due to ridiculous loopholes in procedure?

In North Carolina, fracking — injecting fluid into cracks in rocks to further open them in order to allow more oil and gas to flow out —just became a reality because of a mistake.

State Rep. Becky Carney for North Carolina, Democrat, was the deciding 72nd vote for a bill setting out the rules for fracking by pushing the incorrect button and could be heard on the House floor saying as she did: “Oh, my God — it won’t let me change my vote,” according to a story on ABCNews.com.

Ignore whether fracking is “good” or not, and look at this only as an argument of intention. Carney had voted against the bill before, and based on her words, we can assume she was still against the bill. So why could she not change her vote as long as it was reasonably demonstrated to be a mistake?

North Carolina state law says lawmakers can change their vote if they make a mistake only if the vote does not change the result.

What the hell? What is the point? Where is the fail safe? Even Internet websites and computer programs have a backup measure asking if you want to proceed. Why don’t government officials have said fail safes, being as how they are making decisions far more important than if you want to delete a file or install a program?

How many other decisions have been voted for or against because of ridiculous rules laid out that allow for mistakes or lack of information to define citizens’ futures?

Some state lawmakers in Tennessee often cast more than one vote on legislation by using the votes of absent representatives around them, a process known as ghost voting, according to a NewsChannel 5 investigation.

When asked about ghost voting, State Rep. Dale Ford, R-Jonesborough, for Tennessee said: “No, this is neither illegal or immoral. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s done all of the time.”

Done all the time. Between no fail safes and letting others cast votes for those not present, why the hell do we have elected representatives?

Why not just let Internet users click “like” for bills and whatnot as they do when voting 100 times a day for the best football mascot? It isn’t as if folks vote for their representatives with the understanding that those people are deciding important things.

But then, how often are representatives actually informed enough to be making decisions that we the people would approve of, decisions that are shaping our and future generations’ lives? A fair number of representatives have said they were unfamiliar with most of the content for Obamacare.

For example, in a CNSNews.com interview, U.S. Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., said: “I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.”

Representatives frequently have assistance because their schedules are busy and they have a lot to do, but it is a little frightening to understand that sometimes the representatives we have put our trust in don’t know what is going on or are not allowed to make corrections to obvious errors.

Maybe it is a desire for a government that is working in our best interests with informed decisions, maybe it is just myself and others being naive enough to think government representatives are worthy of holding their office, but these instances that crop up more and more often in small news stories disgust me.

There are dozens of instances, covered by news and not, where citizens’ interests are not being represented in a manner consistent with how the system “should” run.

Look for yourself. Find out how screwed up our government is, and if you are are annoyed as I am, consider doing more than being a passive voter, and try to instigate change.