Last year we elected a president. Last year you voted. This year, is an election year too. Are you voting?
If you are you’re in the minority.
This is the year you elect the judge who will preside over the case when you have a beef with your landlord. This is the year when you elect the council member who will decide whether your municipal code is too strict or just right. This is they year you will elect the county sheriff, the mayor, judges for the court of common pleas. All of whom will make a difference in your life.
Okay, this isn’t an easy election to vote in. There aren’t debates on prime time. There isn’t a lot of press coverage. If you’re lucky, and you looked hard, you found out who the candidates were and what they stood for. If not, you went ink a dink a bottle of ink, to choose who you’d vote for. If you voted at all.
Those who say democracy is a bad idea, point to elections like this, where nobody votes. A professor I had in college liked to tell the tale of some people who elected a “raging freak with a bone in his hair” magistrate. I always wonder what kind of magistrate that “raging freak” became. If he took his job seriously, there’s a chance he didn’t do too badly. He might have been honest and compassionate. Doubtful that he sent anyone to prison for a year for skinny dipping in a farm pond, as one judge I know of did.
Shortly after that judge sentenced the skinny dipper to a year, he was voted out of office. The skinny dipper had a lot of friends and they had a lot more friends. All of them voted.
That’s what else makes these elections so important. A few people can make a huge difference.
Conservatives know this. Already the right wing is looking to take over school boards, county commissions, civil courts.
They will. Unless of course you vote. In this very important election, which you are most likely ignoring.