DEMOCRACY?
Do you know how many people voted yesterday in our municipal elections? One hundred and eighty, give or take a few absentee ballots. Around 10% of the residents of our town found time to vote. The low voter participation in local and mid term elections is a sad story, made more so because it is these seemingly insignificant elections that most directly effect our daily lives. You want a good education for your kids? Who do you want to control town funds? Your neighbor is running for school board, select board, trustee of the trusts and other offices. Your neighbor on the school board? Hummm.... That can be a good thing .... or not. It's up to you! Despite what some might say, the responsibility for educating kids does not lessen as we get older either: well educated, responsible, citizens do not just happen. We all benefit from living in a society of well educated, responsible residents and we all bear the responsibility and privilege of assuring this outcome. Your school board has a lot of control over the process and you have control over who sits on that board. Obvious, no? Then why not vote? Who cares about state legislature? You should because with low voter participation, it does not take more than a few dedicated zealots to elect their person. If there are similarly minded zealots in enough districts, they can easily take control of state legislature and from there have the power to directly affect much of our daily lives and how our district interacts on the state and national level . This stuff is important. In a way, it is more important than much of what happens on the world scale, where we as individuals have little control. I am sad that so few of our residents seem to care about this.
