DID YOU VOTE?

November 10, 2011 | Daily Republic
Nonvoters, thanks for nothing
by Kelvin Wade

This week saw another dismal election turnout in Fairfield. Low-turnout elections favor the candidate who works the hardest to get their voters out. In this case, it was new council member Pam Bertani, and Judi Honeychurch among others running for school board.

When you look at what the city faces, with budget shortfalls in the millions, one would think the public would be engaged. We’ve seen city services slashed. We’ve been fortunate enough to get a federal grant for law enforcement while many other communities have had to make deep cuts to public safety.

Still, only a minority of voters bothered to vote. Nonvoters left my brother, pollworker Tony Wade, bored while waiting to assist voters.

When you look at the cavalier attitude we have about voting, it’s hard to believe the right to vote has such a contested history in this country. Women’s groups fought for more than 70 years before the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women’s suffrage was passed in 1920. Native Americans didn’t become citizens until 1920 and their efforts to vote were often thwarted by poll taxes and literacy tests.

Blacks’ history of voting was hard-fought. The Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and other organizations and techniques like poll taxes and tests were used to disenfranchise African-Americans. Even today, there’s a move by many states to erect roadblocks to voting under the guise of fighting voter fraud. We can’t even get eligible voters to care enough to vote once, yet we’re worried that someone might vote twice?

Some people don’t want to stand in a line to vote, yet I see people stand in long lines to buy coffee at Starbucks. Your vote isn’t more valuable than a latte?

And that’s hardly an excuse because voters can vote by mail. But according to a published account, less than a third of mailed ballots came back.

There were more than 2,000 undervotes, where Fairfielders chose one City Council candidate instead of two. Perhaps a small percentage was an accident. Maybe some voters misunderstood the instructions. Or maybe the answer is that voters looked at the field of candidates and could only find one they felt comfortable supporting. In a race where incumbent Rick Vaccaro trailed incumbent Chuck Timm by 110 votes and Timm trailed frontrunner Bertani by 125 votes, those undervotes made a huge difference.

The Fairfield-Suisun School Board race saw more than 9,800 undervotes, where voters neglected to vote for four candidates. Once again, this race could’ve gone in any direction if those voters had been more careful or inclined to vote for more candidates.

With what we’ve seen in the hard cuts that have had to be made in local education, it’s surprising that the majority of voters would leave leadership decisions in the hands of a minority of voters.

Lastly, Friday is Veterans Day, where we honor the service of veterans of all U.S. wars. The military has protected this country and allowed us to continue our way of life. Cheers to those brave Americans who have fought for our country. But jeers to those Americans who don’t exercise those hard-fought freedoms on Election Day. Peace.
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ADDITIONAL NOTES: I can understand someone thinking their vote doesn't count. If you voted for John McCain for President in California? Yeah, forget that. It's like voting for Barack Obama in Alabama. But in local elections, your vote most definitely makes a difference. Races are decided by such small margins. And I can't understand why anyone would let their neighbors make decisions for them.

You wouldn't go to a restaurant and hand the menu to the guy at the next table and tell him to order for you. Nor would you want the guy at the next table to stick you with his bill. But that's what's happening when you don't vote. A new city council could decide to raise your taxes. And you had absolutely no say in the makeup of that council. I mean, you did have a say. You had a chance to have a say, but if you didn't vote, you opted out.

There's no excuse. One can vote by mail. Or even if you didn't fill out your ballot in time to mail it, you can always drop it off at a polling place. I don't get it.

Democracy is participatory. Democracy is what people have dreamt of under totalitarian regimes. But today's voters.... I don't get it.