Study Shows That 99% of Voters Don’t Know What a Comptroller Does

“I always just assumed they were the people that controlled air traffic, like, you know, air traffic comptrollers.”

In a recent polling place, reporters stopped to talk to voters at a voting booth. To preserve the secret ballot, voters wanted to keep their names anonymous but voiced their opinions.

While voters had their differences on key issues, reporters noticed a startling trend: 99% of voters who came out of the polling station didn’t know what a comptroller was or did.

“I thought they were just the people that control the computers?” one voter asked.

“I always just assumed they were the people that controlled air traffic, like, you know, air traffic comptrollers,” another voter said.

“Is that even a person? I thought they just meant the remote that shuts water on or off,” said a young, 18-year-old voter.

Most voters said that they came to vote for high-profile positions like President, governor, mayor, and maybe even a councilman, but they became bewildered by the sheer length of the ballot and simply had no idea what a comptroller did when they reached the very end of the ballot. Several voters reported voting for the comptroller candidate that had the cooler name, while others just voted for the person that they saw more campaign signs for because they respected the hustle.

However, the majority of voters shared a similar sentiment: after voting for a councilman, they had no idea who they were voting for in other portions of the ballot — they simply had to choose someone. Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, Green Party voters, and everyone on the spectrum reported not putting much thought at all into the office of the comptroller. None of them knew what a comptroller did.

“I mean, if the office was really that important to our lives, it would be common knowledge, wouldn’t it?” Local Republican said.

“I always felt like it was the kind of thing you became to sound cool on your resume,” Local Democrat added.

In fact, the one person that knew and correctly answered that a comptroller was the person that took care of a city’s finances as the city’s accountant, was named Henry Pratt, the man on the ballot for being a comptroller. Pratt confessed himself only finding out what a comptroller did a couple days ago and gave false promises while campaigning door-to-door that he would ease traffic congestion downtown.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what a comptroller did until recently, too. But it’s too late to walk back my promises,” Pratt said.