Voter Apathy

[effex100]

I think it's great that so many people turned out to vote these last few weeks. However it seems many people were there to vote for president and not much else.

I was reading this article in Florida Today about one of the Palm Bay's city council races that was so close it's triggered a recount. Here's a excerpt from the article.

"One problem that has

Comments

[fabulousme]

I've always been an ardent voter, I encourage other people to vote, try to keep up on the issues, but there have been many times I showed up at the polls and saw names in the booth about whom I knew nothing. I've usually lived in small towns, where the names of the players are signs in people's lawns and usually not much else. The League holds a "Meet the Candidates" locally, but if you don't get the paper every day and don't read it cover to cover every day, a great deal of the details will be missed

[effex100]

I completely agree, information is very difficult to find at the city level in most places.

My issues isn't so much that people are uninformed, it's that people are uninformed and are marking random candidates.

If you don't know, just don't vote. There were a bunch of the local judges I didn't vote on because I knew nothing about them.

[fabulousme]

Here, with our lever machines and the upcoming electronic machines, you have to make a selection in every category or the system won't accept it. I've had to make completely uninformed decisions in order to cast my knowledgeable choices. When I have to do that, I usually look not at the party so much, but who the Independence and Green parties are supporting. Then, sometimes I'll vote for the major party candidate under one of those parties instead of the major. Not informed, but when I have a surprise in the booth, it's the best I can do.

[effex100]

Wow that sucks. We have paper scan-tron type ballots here. You can skip any races you want with no problem.

I actually don't mind voting a party line, your at least voting for a party ideology. The article is referring to a non-partisan race so people are just voting for random names and that's what bugs me.

On another note, Yay Green Party. I'm hopefully going to be involved in building a Green Party here over the next few months.

[cp]

I really wondered about that. Given the attention and emotion surrounding the Presidential race, and the attendant record-breaking turnout, I wondered if people would go vote for President and nothing else, or vote along party lines even though they had no concept of the candidates and issues in the other contests. One thing that really surprised me was that voters in both Florida and California, which went Democratic in the Presidential race, at the same time approved a conservative ban on gay marriage.

[effex100]

I can't say I'm surprised the amendment passed here in Florida, disappointed but not surprised.

What makes me sad is that locally (Brevard County)the political scene is very conservative here. Every single Progressive lost their contest with the exception of the two Palm Bay city council races (and maybe some other city races). This county also voted 55% for McCain.

It really sucks.