There is a local election on Tuesday, November 5th. I’m not hopeful that turnout will be anything impressive, because it never is in local election years. View my post on that here: Who is Going to Fix the Potholes?
Because I follow news and elections closely, I can afford to be lax about looking up info to prepare myself for the election. I didn’t sit down to do it until this weekend. I needed to look up my registration, view my ballot, and look up info on the candidates. This way, I will be an informed member of the electorate. It sounds fancy, but it just means I won’t go into a voting booth blind. I will do my research and know who is running, and who I want representing me.
First, I looked up my registration. It took 4 minutes and 14 seconds. I went to the Monroe County Board of Elections website. I did that, because it’s my local county’s Board of Elections. They have my ballot, and they will tally my vote. That way, I’m getting my information right from the source.
Now I’ve got my polling place and what number districts I’m in, for county legislature, state legislature, Congressional districts. What’s more, they have the option for me to view my ballot. This lets me see what it will look like, when I vote on Tuesday. It shows me all the races, what candidates are on what party lines, and any propositions on the ballot.
I then grabbed all that info and put it in a spreadsheet. That looks like this:
I’m not expecting everyone to do this, but if you do, it can help to really consider your options. The ballot gave me the first 3 columns of info. It took me about 19 minutes to do it. The reason I did this, is for the 4th column. I wanted to look up each candidate’s website or social media page, so I could learn a bit about their platform. To do that, I went to the Monroe County Democratic Committee website and the Monroe County Republican Committee website. They will have links to any candidate that they have endorsed. Any on a 3rd party line, and not endorse by either of those two parties, I googled.
Doing that took me 16 minutes. So, from start to finish, I spent 40 minutes. That leaves me 20 minutes to look at each candidate’s site for a minute or so and see if they are for me.
Come Tuesday, people will be elected to those offices. If turnout is typical of a local election year, about 30% of registered voters will decide those races. That means about 15%-20% of the population will show up to decide who represents 100% of us. That’s just not enough. Elected officials will not have any incentive to work in the people’s interest, if the people aren’t even paying attention.
I don’t expect everyone to make spreadsheets, but we owe it to ourselves to know who wants to represent us. Take the 5 minutes to look up your registration, and grab your ballot. Then you can look up the candidates, and know who the best choice is. Abstaining means allowing your last choice to end up in power.
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.
~ Elie Wiesel
As a country, we need to all make sure we don’t take our vote for granted. It is most certainly under attack.
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