Comments on: Why are we electing these people?

By: can we kill the run-off? plz? | Atlanta Metblogs

can we kill the run-off? plz? | Atlanta Metblogs — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:57:17 +0000

[...] am all for people’s civic duty, but when we are voting over and over and over, and as ben mentioned for positions most people don’t even know what they do, it’s easy to see why people [...]

By: michael moebes

michael moebes — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:23:39 +0000

I’m with Patrick…if I don’t know the person(s), I leave it blank. I try to know something about each contest, but it doesn’t always happen.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:16:56 +0000

My policy on these types of things is to leave it blank if I truly have no idea. Looking at some of the vote totals on these down ballot races, every vote really does count. If there is someone that needs to be booted, I don’t want to keep them in with a mindless yes vote that cancels out a vote of someone who has done more research, and if someone should stay, I don’t want to see them booted because I voted no out of spite.

By: Green

Green — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:54:17 +0000

Coming from a place where they rehash every other year whether or not to teach evolution in the schools, school board elections can sometimes be a big deal. Obviously not the case here, but I do like having the right to boot folks just in case

By: bking

bking — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:37:28 +0000

15 minutes researching a Municipal Court judge? There were like six or seven judges. I’m not going to spend 1.5 to 2 hours researching these folks. Do you know why? Because 90% of the rest of the city isn’t going to, they will just check “yes” and retain them. All of the incumbents won with 80% of the vote. Why waste my time for a position that know one cares about?

Democracy requires an educated population to work – these offices are so small, most voters cannot be reasonably expected to spend the time to research these folks. There is no “democracy” for these positions, because no one knows squat and no one will ever know squat about the position.

Plus, they aren’t even opposed, it is just “should they be retained.” That is a system set up to retain incumbents! Calling it an election is almost a fraud.

You are one of the ten people in the city who knew before hand that there was a referendum on municipal court judges, and one of the three people who spent the time researching them. Congrats. Gary E. Jackson won with 81.25% of the vote.

By: Reid Davis

Reid Davis — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:22:38 +0000

Excuses, excuses. Connect with your local neighborhood organization, read the bulletin board(s) and spend a few minutes doing online research.

For example, I voted yes to all judges but Gary E. Jackson. Why? I happen to know that he’s been one of the reasons we’ve had a hard time getting code enforcement cases to be resolved in a timely manner. He needs to be booted for someone who’ll be a lot tougher on owners of derelict property. Took me all of 15 minutes to ferret that information out.

By: james

james — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:56:49 +0000

dude, i could not agree with you more. i was going to write someone in for every one of these races, but after a while it just got to be too time consuming and i was hungry.