As new candidates ponder a run for the next election season, it is worth taking a look at whom we typically elect. Most may think their vote goes for an independent individual, but in fact for the most part, we elect robots. At least we wouldn’t be worse off if we did.

Democrat or Republican, that “individual” you are voting for has to pledge allegiance to their party first, then hit the campaign trail and convince voters how human they are.

Take Rep. Derek Stanford (D — 1st District) for example. He has and will again pledge allegiance to his party to earn their endorsement — an absolute must for anyone who wants to win. Literally the allegiance requires the candidate to check off a series of boxes regarding a host of issues. Check the wrong box and you’re out.

In Stanford’s case, not only does he check all the right boxes, he votes purely down his party line … every time, without fail. Why not then just vote for a robot, or computer program to do the representing for us? Just program the issues that the party stands for and hit “run.” This could save a lot of time and money, plus a lot of disingenuous conversation on the campaign trail.

Rep. Stanford offers particular weight to this argument because he, by his own definition, is a statistician (he runs analytics for a telecom corporation), and he’ll cite that fact when deliberating policy. It’s nothing more than a mathematical “if-then” for him. If situation-A is presented, run diagnostic through party checklist, and vote for pledged outcome-B.

If you are comfortable with this robotic, check-box-determined model, then you like Congress — you are satisfied with Congress and Olympia and everyone in office whose campaign costs more than $20,000. Because anything short of an enormous amount of money won’t prove to the party that the candidate is deeply indebted and obligated to pledge allegiance to the platform (the checkboxes).

Mr. Stanford’s campaign spent more than $148,000 to get him elected in the last round. That’s a lot of cash for a computer program that he could probably write himself. Maybe because he is an insider now, he will get a discount.

Of course, no election comes without doorbelling, and with the new boundaries of the 1st Legislative District covering a good section of the Inglewood-Finn Hill neighborhood and a swath of the 39th District southeast of Cathcart, Rep. Stanford will be doing his best to convince you that he is more than a mere robot.

But like any good politician (or statistician), Rep. Stanford is reading this and statistically analyzing, from some proven mathematical equation, that voters will simply forget by November. Probably so. Because, in the end, we the voters support the most predictable system — one set of check boxes or the other.

Adam Brauch, Bothell