I voted in a Chinese election

There was a knock-on the door this morning from a volunteer. He was asking me about voting for the local residents' committee. Most communities have these: normally they don't do much, but they seem to have a small budget to fix things and maybe they are the ones arranging for the old people to help out here and then. Anyway, there are always a lot of signs in our elevator all the time from the committee with updates and things, so if nothing else they do make a lot of effort to communicate!

The volunteer pulled out a form and asked me to vote. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "i don't really know any of these people so do i have to vote? who should i vote for?"

Volunteer: "it doesn't matter, just vote for anyone".

Me: "Can you recommend any of the candidates - who is good or bad?"

Volunteer: "I don't know, you need to pick 2 of the 9 who you don't think are competent. Just pick a couple, maybe the ones in the middle, and put a cross by their name".

Me: "ok, i'll pick X and Y"

Volunteer: "good. can you write in your room number, circle option 1, 4 and 5 and also sign on behalf of your landlord"

Me: "ok"

So i have maybe contributed to ruining two people's lives by giving them a vote of no confidence. And i have voted on behalf of a landlord whom I have never met. On the plus side it seems probably no-one else knows who the 9 candidates are so it is unlikely i'll be influencing the vote -- it's going to be entirely random which ones get elected, or else the volunteers are influencing the vote by encouraging giving a no-confidence vote to the ones in the middle. Looks like the ones with names at the beginning and ends of the alphabet will get in then. Would it be any better for such a local election in the "West"? Probably not!

I wonder if they can sort out our hot water. The whole community has had no hot water for a month. It's a bit of a pain. Andrea boils water and then washes from a tub. I just have a cold shower. Our neighbors and even friends (who are lawyers) complain every day. The signs in the lobby change regularly trying to placate us and explain why this is necessary. People are not really happy. Apparently the hotel across the street is doing good business with people ganging up to rent a room to have a shower!