To Busy To Vote? Really?
It constantly amazes me that people will bitch about the government and then they don’t participate by the mere act of casting a ballot on election day. So, I’m with Michael Silence and Say Uncle on this one, that when Knoxville only had five percent of registered voters go to the polls yesterday, that is pretty pathetic.
From Silence:
Congratulations, though, to last night’s five winners in the City Council races. They will have tough decisions to make that affect 100% of the population, even though less than 5% of the population (less than 8% of the registered voters) cared enough to have a say in those decisions.
The key may come down to that although all elections are local when you get right down to it, voters were not inspired to go to the polls. And that’s a damn shame, quite frankly.
I refer you to this from last year.
Now, he’s talking about the presidential election, but the last three minutes are worth revisiting.
I just think that because it’s the only thing we have when it comes to participating in the political process, that it is our obligation to vote. Too many people died giving us this right, that it seem a shame not to vote.
And as Ferguson says, do we have to sexy up the vote to get constituents to go to the polls?
Just saying.
You prattle on as if you didn’t know that A) Rosie O’Donnel’s new radio show debuted this week and B) the V series premiered last night.
Do you still think people don’t have their priorities on order?
Freaky, silly me. (I missed both. I’m such a bad pop culturite.) Heh.
I get my priorities out of line sometimes.
Turnout might have been higher if the Knoxville media had paid at least some attention to the City Council races. Instead, they spent months falling all over themselves, trying to out-sensationalize each other while tweeting the salacious details of an infamous murder trial.
I hate to come to the defense of people who didn’t vote, but city elections can be hard to decipher for the average voter. Instead of hot button issues they tend to focus on neighborhood and zoning issues. Not the sorts of things the average voter can sort through at a glance. I’ve made it a point to know what’s going on in city elections, but without attention from local media 5% is all that can be expected.
I’ve had the opportunity to speak with local media types about their lack of coverage for city elections and the response is all ways some variant of, “We cover a larger area than just Knoxville. It would be unfair to the rest of our audience that doesn’t live in Knoxville if we devoted more space/airtime to city elections.” This is an incredibly week excuse, but that’s the mantra.