My Opinion: Why You Should Vote November 3
Oct 8, 2009 9:00 - 6 Comments
On Tuesday, November 3, you will have the chance to vote for mayor and to vote for four fellow Rockville residents to represent you on the City Council. Most people who vote get jazzed and vote in presidential years, when interest is high (like in 2008). Fewer vote in the off-years, when we vote for our members of Congress and state representatives (like in 2006).
By comparison, very, very few people vote in the off-year municipal elections that are held on ODD years. In our last Rockville city elections, in 2007, we had about 20% turnout. Our city has 57,100 people, of whom 29,535 were registered to vote in the 2007 election. That translates to 5,887 votes total in the Mayoral race.
When it comes to City Council, the number of votes that separated the lowest vote-getting winner and the highest vote-getter who did not win was 113 votes: Phyllis Marcuccio beat out Carl Henn 2,397 to 2,284 votes.
Given this, it boggles my mind that people are not enthusiastically beating down the door to go vote in Our Fair City’s elections.
People like their vote to count. In presidential elections, in all but the swing states, people’s individual votes do not carry a lot of weight. But, in our city elections, man do our votes count! 113 people would have changed the character of the City Council dramatically. That’s not a lot of people. It’s about the number of folks who might come to a church service, or visit your garage sale over the course of a day.
But even more than that, even in our suburban DC setting, what happens inside the Beltway can sometimes seem quite distant. Yet, look at the issues that our Mayor and Council make decisions about:
- Our property taxes
- The costs and fees for our City services
- What we can be built, where, and how
- What kinds of neighborhood parks we have
- What kind of police force we will have
- And much, much more
All of this hits very close to home. The decisions that the Mayor and Council make have a direct effect on our day-to-day lives. They aren’t theoretical.
There are plenty of ways to learn about the issues and where people stand. Follow the election on Rockville Central. Attend the upcoming televised candidate forums. Attend the Rockville Central candidate forum on Saturday, October 24. Go directly to the candidate web sites and take a look at what they have to say.
There are so many more ways to learn about the candidates. It just take for each of us to decide that we ought to make the effort.
And so, I urge my Rockville neighbors and friends to remember this, as we head into the home stretch of our biannual city elections: You have a chance to be heard loud and clear. Your vote counts and, given the importance of the issues, there is little argument to be made that you have something more important to do that day. We will miss you if you don’t show.
As I am fond of saying, we live in the longest-running experiment in self-governance on the planet. The fundamental building block of this experiment is the individual citizen. It’s our responsibility to play our part in self governance.
Will you join me?
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Yes, Brad, I will join you in voting on November 3. I recently got some ideas about for whom I will vote, based on your opinion article, in Rockville Central, titled “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Parking in Town Square.”
I e-mailed all of the candidates who are running for mayor and city council and asked them for their position on parking fees and parking hours in The Town Square parking garages. Regardless of how I personally feel about the issue of parking fees and parking hours in The Town Square garages, the responses or lack thereof showed me how I believe the candidates would be responsive to me and other citizens if these candidates were elected to the offices for which they are running.
The responses and lack thereof ran the whole spectrum of responsiveness or lack thereof. One candidate’s website was not up, until just a few days ago, so there was no way that I could determine how to even e-mail this candidate. Another candidate wrote that 2 or 3 other people had asked this candidate questions, ahead of me, and that this candidate would answer them first and get to mine toward the end of this week; well, today is Thursday about 5:30 p.m., and I still have not received an answer to my question. I also can only wonder how a City Council member would function if he/she is only able to answer one question about one issue at a time. I would think that a City Council member would have to deal with many, many questions and lots of issues at the same time and to communicate his/her views about these issues with the voting constituency also at the same time. One candidate was willing to speak to me, on the telephone about his position, but he did not accept my invitation, so far, to put his position in writing; I, myself, felt this was being sort of evasive, as I believe this candidate knew that I was quoting other candidates’ positions, here, on Rockville Central, as he referred to me being a frequent contributor to Rockville Central, in his e-mail. I wrote back and told this candidate that I might want to speak with him by telephone, later, but, for now, I did not want to distort his position, and that, indeed, I would QUOTE his position on Rockville Central, as I had with all of the other candidates. I have not heard back from him. I did not appreciate what I think, personally, was sort of a way of “getting around” my questions about his position without answering them. Another candidate would not elaborate on his response to my original question, in a follow-up e-mail, which I sent about a question I had, as this candidate seemed to be getting into another unrelated agenda of this candidate’s, which was not related to my question.
However, many of the candidates thanked me for asking them their position on these issues and seemed genuinely sincere about it. Some candidates seemed open to other’s ideas and others seemed closed; I prefer candidates who are open to other’s ideas and appear to want to operate with a collaborative approach to problem-solving. Some candidates, in addition to e-mailing me their positions, offered to meet with me, personally, to explain their positions more fully. This kind of “constituent service” is what I would like to have in elected candidates and, when candidates actually are elected, is often called constituent service – or even beyond, when an elected official meets face-to-face with a constituent.
Brad, I value highly the way I was treated and the responses or lack thereof to the questions I posed to the candidates in your opinion article “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Parking in Town Square.” I believe that past behavior is the best predictor we have of future behavior, so I will be using the past behavior of the candidates, as a strong guide for me, in helping me decide for whom to vote on November 3.
Great story Brad! I think you should send this to the editors of the papers also. I love the energy! It was great finally meeting you in person tonight…….Trapper
Brad,
I don’t think the people who run the City are interested in a big voter turnout. In 1995 I suggested moving the City elections back to the month of May (better weather). They could retain the off year election cycle, but moving it to a warm month makes sense if you want to increase voter turnout and interest in the election.
We are no longer an agrarian society and don’t need to wait until all the crops are in to have an election (which is why November was chosen). Maybe it is time to revisit this along with the need to have 2 additional council members. Our City is too big for four council members and a mayor to handle it all.
I’m sure November is selected to coincide with the other elections in each “election season” thus maximizing voter turnout and reducing costs. I’d bet the voter turnout in a May Rockville only election would be even lower than a November election where there may be MD or Mont Co issues on the ballot.
Turnout of younger voters has declined for 40 years. There has been a lot of talk about how to increase voter turnout: a national voting holiday, week and month long voting periods, internet voting, etc. Some of these ideas may increase turnout but would they increase just the counted votes or would they increase the interest and participation of voters? If people want to vote now, they have a full day to do so scheduled months in advance. They also have the absentee ballot choice. I know schedules do change and people are busy but I doubt that even 5% of people who don’t vote say that the reason for not voting is that they are too busy on the chosen election day. Most polls are open 12-15 hours a day to maximize turnout.
Mr. Curtis mentions increasing to City Council by 2 members. I read that Phyllis Marcuccio has suggested studying this idea. Obviously there would be a cost in doing so with increased salaries, travel etc. Are some of us not being represented? Council meetings are open and members do have open hours for the public outside of the scheduled meetings. Could someone, it doesn’t have to be you Brad, explain what 2 extra council members would achieve?
Maybe the candidates could motivate the young to turn out by courting them. They could have candidate forums at MC, Richard Montgomery, Wooten, or ROckville.
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