Dear Editor:
Thank you for publishing the election results in depth. What a tedious job it must be to create the charts and then carefully enter the vote totals. (By my haphazard count, the Herald staff had at least one thousand six hundred forty-two opportunities to get the numbers wrong!)
Congratulations to all who ran – those who won and those who did not – who cared enough to expend the considerable effort required for a campaign. Congratulations also to the third of registered voters, more or less, who demonstrated their citizenship by going to the trouble of voting. And two words to the unregistered residents over 18 in Douglas County: Get Registered! You will be smiled at by the fine people in the County Clerk’s Office; it’s easy, it’s fast, it’s free, and next November you get to participate.
Bring the kids after school and make voting a family affair. All you need to register is a picture ID and something with your name and address on it if the picture ID doesn’t; a rent receipt, a utility bill, an arrest warrant, whatever you have. Call the clerk at 683-4714 and you’ll see how easy this is. Do it by 6 October and you are ready to vote.
Why vote? Well, for one thing you can send a message: last time you could have joined the three thousand one hundred forty people who voted for a gal who was running unopposed, who would have won if nobody at all had voted for her – and she still got more votes than any other candidate unopposed, opposed, or otherwise. That’s a lot of people telling you you’re doing a good job.
For another thing, voting can be fun: in the last election, if eight people had changed their votes out of the three thousand five hundred thirty-seven votes that were cast, we would have a different Recorder of Deeds come 1 January – only eight people out of thirty-five hundred!
If you were listening to the KKOZ radio election results program on election night you heard that after all but one precinct had reported their vote totals, only two votes – yes, two votes – separated the candidates for Recorder of Deeds. Everyone was holding their breath in anticipation as those last 10 or 12 votes were being reported. It doesn’t get much more exciting that that, especially if you voted and were waiting to see if the election went to your candidate or the other candidate.
But, far more important, when you vote you tell those who are running that you are watching them – you are grading their performance in office or you are expecting them to do a good job when they get there. If you don’t watch them, who will?
Voting is the third most important civic duty you can perform.
