About 5 percent of Mecklenburg County voters actually bothered to, uh, vote today, according to this Charlotte Observer graphic. Since Republicans and unaffiliated voters make up about half or so of the county electorate, that means about 10 percent of eligible folks turned out. Craptastic.
Is it really that damn hard to drive to a precinct, a library or the board of elections in the days leading up to voting day? It took me three minutes this morning to walk in, press the touch-screen, and walk out.
Most of us can’t donate big to parties, can’t make a few well-placed calls to Powerful People. Even if the act seems woefully ineffectual, voting is one of the few ways we can have a modicum of clout. And yet, when I walked into my precinct at 9:15 a.m., precinct workers told me I was the first voter they’d had.
How many folks, ya think, don’t mind sending troops overseas to fight for free elections in Iraq, but are too damned shiftless to actually vote in their own elections?
(Whew. That’s a lot of sanctimony this late in the evening.)
This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2007.
