Wednesday, May 06, 2015
Only 7% Of Registered Voters In Marion County Bothered To Vote In Primary
Voters today are too busy tracking their favorite sports teams and trying to keep up with the Kartrashians to exercise their precious right to vote. Only 48,606 voters participated in yesterday's primary election in Marion County. That's just a little more than 7% of the total number of registered voters. That's a 35% decline in the percentage of voters who participated in this year's primary election compared to the 2011 primary election. In 2011, incumbent Mayor Greg Ballard was running unopposed for re-election in the Republican primary, while the Democratic candidate, Melina Kennedy, faced a contested Democratic primary. This year's abysmal turnout was almost as bad as the pathetic turnout in the 2007 municipal primary when only 6.5% of the registered voters bothered to vote in the election.
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5 comments:
I'd be more interested in the turnout in the two contests council races and the school issue districts. Given that the expected mayoral candidates won by huge margins, there really wasn't an "election" anywhere else.
We shouldn't have to vote. We don't identify as either Democrats or Republicans, so why should we vote in their internal elections?
Government has become something that no longer has anywhere near the consent of the governed.
Putting actual government issues on primary ballots only has the effect of making whatever is passed on primary day illegal and non-binding.
There is no longer any real distinction between establishment Republicans and liberal Democrats. Marion County is run by corrupt, crony Democrat and Republican machines and it is true that often our "choices" in candidates are not really our choices but are political backroom selected pawns on a chess board. I learned how this is done up close and personal by watching David Brooks operate his political treachery.
I vacillated between registering and voting and ignoring and sitting out this Primary.
But then I thought about how wrong it is to allow corrupt attorneys like David Brooks use the law he learned to virtually break the law to get his way and his wife's way, how wrong it is to allow Kyle Walker and his wife Jennifer Hallowell Walker use their positions to line their pockets, how wrong it is to allow Democrats on the Council to use their positions to take campaign donation bribes from entities like digital billboard companies and how ignorant it is for Democrat Councilors to think they are saving or creating jobs by throwing our tax dollars at phony companies like Angie's List...
I registered and I voted. And
I am glad I did. Although the Primary results in my downtown precinct and ward are that I have no one I care to vote for as Mayor or for City Council in November- there will still be a race or two I can cast a November ballot with a clean conscience.
By voting I believe I earned the right to complain about and do anything I can to fight the corruption that is the hallmark of Greg Ballard and the local and state GOP.
Anon 803, I understand your struggle but I come down on side that by voting you cannot complain. By consenting and participating, you essentially say my person lost but that's how it works so oh-well until next fake election. I think it is more important to be engaged and do what I do, such as yelling to Brainard yesterday while dragging my kids on Monon Trail that I hope you lose. He thought I was praising him so said "thanks".
Not a sports fan nor can I speak to pop culture as I don't understand it, but I didn't vote. I didn't vote not because I don't care, but precisely because I do. You see, my vote validates the whole charade. It implies that I believe it matters, which of course it doesn't and hasn't for auite some time. I work with a bunch of people who took the blue pill. They scare the living daylights out of me. I took the red pill and it's all very clear. I pay attention so I know how to best position myself, but vote? No way. I respect myself too much to be willingly used like that.
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