Please...don't vote
With the pleas to please vote from our Town Crier and our Town Peeper (Frank and Mike R, respectively), you know the opposite is probably the wiser choice. I was in McDonald's yesterday (the dollar menu place, not the bookstore) speaking with some long-time Estes residents I hadn't seen for awhile.
They asked me who to vote for, and naturally, after telling them to vote for me (some of them said, "Oh, yeah, I voted for you last time," although I'm a bit skeptical - in one instance, I wrote my name down on a napkin, which was then promptly used by the wife of the gentleman I was talking with to clean up some spilled chocolate sauce), I started spelling out the various positions of the various candidates, and then thought, "Wait, are they making an informed decision, or just relying on my opinion?"
So I would rather people this far into the process who don't recognize three names amongst the list of ten candidates not exercise their civic duty, and not vote. There is nothing they can do prior to April 3, short of scheduling meetings with all 10, to get a real idea of what each candidates' strengths and weaknesses are, and I would rather they abstain than add to the background noise produced when everyone is voting essentially randomly based on a chance encounter with someone they know and who "should know" at the grocery store or funeral home.
In fact, I would rather the ballot have no names on it, and people have to correctly fill in the names of three candidates they know well enough to spell their names correctly. Any misspellings should be thrown out, any use of middle names or initials should be thrown out (provided no two candidates have the same first and last names, like the cohabiting Bobbsey twins running this time - you know folks aren't serious if they've already filed for other open seats on other boards). Fill in the blanks are always a better gauge of intellect than multiple choice anyway.
To be completely truthful, since we will never go to a blank ballot, I wish you could vote every candidate up or down, say, have the option to vote for three 3 candidates you like and 3 candidates you would seriously consider leaving town over if they were re-elected (oops, ever elected). Then you could give candidates one point for a positive vote, and subtract one point for a negative vote. Bring some excitement back to election night parties. Folks who ended up in the hole could never run again. For anything locally. Ever. That would make people think twice about whether or not they really wanted to spend the time and energy on a doomed campaign. Civility now.
I tend to vote opposite the general rabble, and select those candidates who have no chance of winning, but who should be rewarded for spending money locally on advertising, for example, and not pressing out buttons from that stupid do-it-yourself kit like they were making apple cider. This election, I will be casting votes for Barbara MacAlpine and Dave Shirk, as an encouragement to try again, and so they don't feel disappointed or distressed or worthless over getting less than 200 votes each in a crowded field, where 30% of the ballots are submitted by people who don't even recognize the names of who they have been told to vote for. If the folks at McDonald's still don't know, by name, the head of VEP after she's already been gone three months, despite expressing a general anger over something she did (or at least they heard something about her that might have been less than positive), there may be no hope for the future of our democratic society unless we introduce non-discriminatory voting tests (meaning discriminatory only in the sense of not allowing people who are voting just to vote not to vote).
So I would rather people this far into the process who don't recognize three names amongst the list of ten candidates not exercise their civic duty, and not vote. There is nothing they can do prior to April 3, short of scheduling meetings with all 10, to get a real idea of what each candidates' strengths and weaknesses are, and I would rather they abstain than add to the background noise produced when everyone is voting essentially randomly based on a chance encounter with someone they know and who "should know" at the grocery store or funeral home.
In fact, I would rather the ballot have no names on it, and people have to correctly fill in the names of three candidates they know well enough to spell their names correctly. Any misspellings should be thrown out, any use of middle names or initials should be thrown out (provided no two candidates have the same first and last names, like the cohabiting Bobbsey twins running this time - you know folks aren't serious if they've already filed for other open seats on other boards). Fill in the blanks are always a better gauge of intellect than multiple choice anyway.
To be completely truthful, since we will never go to a blank ballot, I wish you could vote every candidate up or down, say, have the option to vote for three 3 candidates you like and 3 candidates you would seriously consider leaving town over if they were re-elected (oops, ever elected). Then you could give candidates one point for a positive vote, and subtract one point for a negative vote. Bring some excitement back to election night parties. Folks who ended up in the hole could never run again. For anything locally. Ever. That would make people think twice about whether or not they really wanted to spend the time and energy on a doomed campaign. Civility now.
I tend to vote opposite the general rabble, and select those candidates who have no chance of winning, but who should be rewarded for spending money locally on advertising, for example, and not pressing out buttons from that stupid do-it-yourself kit like they were making apple cider. This election, I will be casting votes for Barbara MacAlpine and Dave Shirk, as an encouragement to try again, and so they don't feel disappointed or distressed or worthless over getting less than 200 votes each in a crowded field, where 30% of the ballots are submitted by people who don't even recognize the names of who they have been told to vote for. If the folks at McDonald's still don't know, by name, the head of VEP after she's already been gone three months, despite expressing a general anger over something she did (or at least they heard something about her that might have been less than positive), there may be no hope for the future of our democratic society unless we introduce non-discriminatory voting tests (meaning discriminatory only in the sense of not allowing people who are voting just to vote not to vote).
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