Why So Many Election Days?
by Nathan Walpow
So we went to vote yesterday. We live in Culver City. The only thing on the ballot was the community college board. There were two precincts there at the La Ballona school, and I asked one of the workers at ours how many voters they’d had. We brought the total to 32.
The turnout in yesterday’s Los Angeles mayoral race was around 15%. The turnout in parts of Los Angeles County outside the city was around 6%.
I’m not going to rail about your sacred duty. Hell, if Andrea hadn’t known one of the college board candidates many years ago, we might not have gone either.
But here’s the thing: there’s another election coming up, a special one for state senate, later in the month. (Plus another in June, etc.) Can’t they coordinate this stuff better? Mightn’t the turnout be at least marginally higher if there were more things to vote for, and if we didn’t have all these itsy-bitsy ballots? Who do I gotta talk to to get this taken care of?
I actually had a canvasser—A CANVASSER!—for the Dem candidate for state Senator yesterday. First canvasser I’d seen since I moved here. he offered me a lawn sign, I declined and bitched about the special election. Seriously, this is retarded. But I may actually vote; it’s amazing what that personal touch does.
2009-03-5 by becca