According to a story in the Herald By Beth Reinhart, there was one precinct where no one showed up to vote. Annie Bentancourt - President of the League of Women Voters said:
''People need to participate in the process. This is embarrassing. What kind of a mandate do some of these elected officials have?''
Remember the Cities pay for elections (reimbursing the county). It is ridiculous to pay with such pathetic turnouts. Do you realize that the over 65 set is electing everyone? That is the reality here. A 5 (voted in the last 5 elections) voter is most likely an old voter. I have called 5's so I know their age (it says so on the list). Many (not all) are self-interested voters (I want my free lunch, I will trade my vote for a free breakfast). These kinds of voters, who are electing the dregs, don't care for the good of the whole community.
Here is my new slogan:
What is the Election about? Getting the 3's out! 3's represent our youth, 5's are old in the tooth. Which do you want in the voting booth?
P.S. Below is some of County Commissioner Joe Martinez's discretionary fund requests. He is up for re-election and all Commissioners have $300,000 of our hard earned money to throw around at election time. Why do you think he is giving to the Alliance for Aging and the Puerto Rican Chamber?
6 comments:
Love the new slogan, but getting the 3s out is harder than you think!
As I was listening to a Spanish radio station the other day, a caller made a comment that reflects the way voters feel about our local elections. He said: "Why should I bother to vote if it's always the same people that are running for office? The same crooks, the same faces". I can add to that that the election has already been decided by our politicians by "manipulating" the absentee ballots to their advantage. I always thought Miamians were stupid because they approve any new taxes before them, until I began to see what is done with the absentee ballots. We need to concentrate in correcting this problem. Then citizens would become again motivated to go to the polls to exercise their rights.
Why do you think the witness requirement was eliminated from the absentee ballot?
What if they held an election and nobody came?
Where were voters? Dade urges election changes
Miami Herald, 11/8/2007
View article on Miami Herald
What if they held an election and nobody came?
That's what happened Tuesday in one Miami precinct...
-----------and:
Tuesday's returns may boost a fledgling effort by the Miami-Dade Elections Department to encourage cities to merge their elections with countywide votes in even-numbered years. Currently, municipal elections are scattered throughout the calendar, catching voters off guard in the spring, summer and odd-numbered years.
''It's better from a logistical and cost-savings standpoint to piggyback onto countywide elections,'' said elections spokeswoman Christina White. ''Now that we're going to be dealing with paper ballots and a brand-new system, we would prefer for everyone to be combined.''
The savings would vary from city to city. Aventura, for example, would save about $60,000 if it moved a proposed special election in October 2008 to coincide with the November general election, White said.
The trend has already caught on in Broward County, where cities are increasingly pushing their traditional spring elections to November. Weston and Southwest Ranches held their first fall elections last year, while voters in Coral Springs, Hallandale Beach, Lauderdale Lakes, Lauderhill, Tamarac, Parkland and Wilton Manors will choose their local representatives along with the president of the United States in November 2008.
Our system, the way absentee ballots works, is an insult to the elders and a disjustice to the community. Some of them don't even know who they are voting for. They have their nurses/care takers vote for them. Give them a little food, tell them petty things and give the gate keeper some money. This really makes me sick. I agree, we need to get the younger generation out to vote. This is for their future!
Amazingly, voting centered in HUD housing seems to be like a gold mine for absentee ballot vote brokers. People are charging campaigns by the ballot and something has got to stop it.
Not only are our votes diluted by early voting and possibly fraud, which has taken away the excitement of election day and which favors richer candidates, our grass roots candidates suffer since they cannot take weeks and weeks off of work to campaign for office.
I sure hope that voters of this town get smarter and pay attention to irregularities in voting and ask their elected officials to do the same. It's time to move all voting to the same time of the year on even years and to implement Instant Run-off Voting.
Truly Blue
I think this is a load of BS to curb costs. This is again a maipulation of the masses by a few. Everyone knows Hispanics vote in droves and only when there's a Presidential Election. We have an election next year in Miami Lakes and one particular candidate named Roberto Alonso, who won his last election by 51 votes to a veritable "nobody" who has since been arrested and was "Baker Acted", is pushing for this as a way of controlling costs. BS. This is his way of winning what appears to be a landslide victory for Mayor Wayne Slaton. It is a distortion of the truth and we have the rights to do with our Town what we so choose. This same "gentleman" who wants to save money, but violates our charter and gives himself a pay raise.
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