Note: last week was hell week for me – seems like I was everywhere but here at my desk. I’ll take up where I left off.
In case you were wondering, yes, I survived what amounted to be a 15 hour day. It was long and rather slow with a pitiful turnout.
Here’s the real dig: to find out the results of yesterdays contest, I had to find them in a media publication. Here’s one:
Silly me, I first went to the Virginia Department of Elections to find the results. Then I tried Ballotpedia. No love from either source. No doubt – somewhere on the VDOE website the results are or will be posted, but then… from where the the press get the results?
Onward. The above article speculates on the significance of the low Republican turnout to the upcoming presidential election. REALLY? Are these “journalists” that stupid or do they have an agenda. Considering the state of the “news media” these days, I suspect the latter. So what’s my take?
Before I get into that, allow me to toss in a couple of these things called “facts”. First, in both elections, the Republicans won handily, despite the “low Republican turnout”. Soooo… where was that massive Democrat turnout to take advantage of this? Fact number two – it was a very quick election. More this below.
First of all, and this was discussed among are team during one of the many slow periods – so few people knew there was even an election being held. As I mentioned in a previous post, I actually found out about it by accident myself and here I was expected to work the election. Hello! The same goes for the rest of our crew including our Chief. She pointed out how few voters even knew this election was taking place. We all had stories to tell about this. Granted, I received 2-3 postcards from one candidate, several text messages including one while I was working the election, as well as a call from representatives from both candidates. Our Chief said she only got one but she is also registered as an independent so… hello.
The Chief also bewailed the fact that our county does not mail out notices to voters with a sample ballot as was done in her previous state. While I agree something like this would be useful for keeping voters informed, I’m not convinced the cost is worth the expense. Those I talked to who had no idea there was an election on Tuesday also told me they do not vote. Meanwhile I am reasonably certain those who are registered to vote were notified at some point. The tendency to ignore said information reveals a larger issue – i.e. an apathetic citizenry.
I just don’t get the idea that we can just go about our daily routines and expect everything to turn out swell. This nearly defines cognitive bias. Let’s face facts folks – unless we make some changes ourselves – in our own lives and promote changes in how we “govern ourselves”, we are all doomed to be enslaved by the usurpers.