The Courier News ran a recent survey on its web site, seeking responses to the following question: Do you plan to vote in Tuesday’s [school] election? When I last checked the results, the replies were as follows: 45.3% of the respondents said they would vote; 27.8% said they would not; and, not surprisingly, 26.9% said, “There’s an election Tuesday?”
What a bummer! In the aggregate, more than half of all respondents either won’t vote or don’t even know there’s an election. I forgot to jot down the total number of people who provided their answers, but I remember it as being fairly high for this type of informal poll. Even more importantly, users of the web in this area, I am happy to assume, are fairly informed and intelligent. Don’t show me up to be wrong!
Why then are you not voting in greater numbers? I won’t talk down to you on that one, because you are much too smart for that.
Therefore, for the constituency that I am the most immediately interested in, the voting population of Bridgewater and Raritan, please get out to the polls tomorrow and do what most of the rest of the people on this planet would give their right arm (and more!) to be able to do.
Evan Lerner, Dr. Arvind Mathur and Al Smith (Raritan’s representative), would, I am sure, like to see you place your check mark next to their names. The school budget is the big issue. It’s $128.8 million dollars, and rising. It consumes by far the biggest percentage of your real estate tax bill. The Board of Education and its administration have been doing what they know to do to get out the vote. So why not make yourselves feel good and stop by your polling place tomorrow, Tuesday, April 15, 2008, between seven in the AM and nine in the PM, and cast your vote?
3 comments:
With your experience, can you really say the children get the best education for the money spent, thorough and efficient? In business we used to talk about fast track. Education is slow track. Our grandchildren are in private schools in NYC. There is a big difference. Fund education with a district income tax and you will see big changes, for the best
The day after another phony election. The Somerset County Sample Ballots were not delivered until late yesterday. One elderly woman showed up at our polling place and asked for a sample ballot so she could see what she was there for. Sad, just another way to eliminate the senior vote. Last year it took three tries to get a 'no' to light. I was told that teachers and mothers really went all out to waste more money. I contacted a Freeholder, I seem to know, looking for some answers. Do you think I will get even one answer?
brom,
This year, there was a strong, tightly-focused effort to lobby for passage of the budget. At the end of the day, though, voter turnout was simply too low, as it often is. For a response by the Chairman of the Somerset County Board of Elections explaning the ballot snafu, please see the April 18th Op-Ed page of the Courier News.
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