With the state sanctioning of voting
by mail due to the pandemic and for
the convenience of all currently registered
voters. You are now able to fill out
your ballot while sunning in your back
yard, lying in bed, or even while sitting
on your bathroom throne. Unfortunately,
the sanctity of the polling booth has
been lost.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Wanting to get more voter participation
is quite commendable. But, with
over 80% of our local electorate participating,
it’s beginning to look like the
cost of running future local city council
campaigns may have gone from a
reasonable $15K to $20K, to being well
over $60K. It will cost this much to send
out the campaign materials containing
the candidate’s message to all the possible
voters.
This sudden, geometrical increase
in campaign costs probably will leave
many fine, local candidates without
much of a chance to participate, let
alone, challenge an incumbent, or actually
win a council seat.
Outside Influence
If local candidates really want to
have a chance of becoming a council
member, they would have to raise
much more in funding than what usually
comes from local grass-roots supporters.
In order to raise enough, they
might have to look outside our city and
accept campaign contributions from
well-heeled individuals or (PACs) political
action committees.
The question comes to mind, that if
more voter participation is a virtuous
goal, do we really want to accept the
consequences of having local candidates
look for outside money from
individuals or PACs who want to buy
controlling interest in our local politics?
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