Greetings and happy new year! A suggested New Year’s resolution that doesn’t involve diet and exercise is in the title above, with emphasis on the word “town.” I say that for two reasons. One of them is that local elections are arguably just as important as their state and federal counterparts.
The other is that cities have their elections in odd-numbered years. Welcome to 2024. Living in a trashy blue city that just dropped the ball in a recent and excellent window of opportunity to remove the mayor and drain the swamp, I am urging you, faithful readers, not to let such a train wreck happen in YOUR TOWN. Local elections matter. A separate statement could be made about how who is locally elected affects your future property taxes and how local funds are (mis)used, but there is a solution. Step up to be your “town crier.”
Primary Day, January 23, is coming soon and a perfect opportunity to hang out at the polls poised in a non partisan manner to make the PSA. A talented and generous veteran graphic artist has already designed the template and has the September and November dates, in addition to January 23, already populated. All you need to do is provide the local dates on which town voters must vote. This varies from town to town, and sometimes there is more than one date. Loudon, pictured, is an example.
Interested people can visit here to get the graphic for their town and order distribution materials at a discount. (cards, magnets, etc.) Or make your own leaflets by printing the image. But hurry! January 23 is approaching soon, and that’s the first big distribution opportunity. If you can profile voters as they leave the polls, approach potentially like-minded ones and remind them that only a small number of people turn out to vote, usually people on town payroll and their families and friends. Tell them their votes are needed for the reasons I mentioned, and hand them something with the important dates to take home and mark their calendars. If you don’t do this in time for January 23, there are always Saturday mornings at your local dump to put in an hour or two, just like candidates do when election time is near. You can do this at or outside other large gathering events, but keep in mind soliciting issues and cold weather as town voting usually happens in the late winter and early spring.
We’ve all seen those bumper stickers that say, “Think globally, act locally.” Here is your opportunity to act locally. And if you live in a city, lend a hand in the suburbs. Suburbs matter. It’s those voters that get us city slickers representation in the Senate and executive council. Do them a solid.
