It's a Small World After All

So the question is, when should we hold our elections.  Our Charter specifies that we hold them on the first Tuesday of December in odd numbered years.  Which we do.  It's our special private time with each other.  Just us, and our election for our Commissioners.  Three of them.  When I moved here in 2005, there was one other issue: acceptance of the renewed VBP Charter.

There's another possibility, though.  And it gets some play every several years.  It's the possibility of piggybacking our little BP election onto the general election, which falls on the first Tuesday of November, in even numbered years.  That's when we vote for President, Senator, Federal Congressperson, State legislators, County elections, judges, Ordinances, and various other issues.

So what's the difference?  Well, there are three.  We pay to register issues on which to vote.  We pay it no matter when we vote.  But if we vote for BP elections at the time of the general election, we don't pay more than the registration, which covers advertising.  If we run our own elections, we also have to pay for the running of the election.  This extra cost is about $4500 per year (about $9000 per election, which happens every other year.)

Another difference is turnout.  During the general elections, people have voting on their minds, and they come out to vote.  Anywhere from about 40-70% do.  But when we have our own VBP elections, it seems fewer people are inspired to bother, and we only get about 27-43% turnout.  So if we held our elections during the general election, instead of all by their lonesome, we'd get a much better turnout.

Well this was on the agenda for the Commission meeting tonight.  Should we move the election, to save money and get a better turnout, or should we leave it as it is.  And this is where the third difference comes into it.  Some people like our little stand-alone elections.  They just like 'em.  Some of the Commissioners talked about that.  These people seem to like that "small town" feeling.  They painted a charming picture, like Norman Rockwell would have, of neighbors out walking, meeting the candidates, walking to the polls, enjoying each others' company.  The old time small town charm was downright palpable.  Yessir, it surely, surely was.  Yup, neighbors acting like neighbors.  Why I s'pose you could go on over to your neighbor's house to borrow a cup of sugar, and sit yourself right down there and talk about who's running for Commissioner.  You could have a cup of coffee while you're jawin' about it.  And that's just how some people feel.  Not too many signs, and the candidates themselves, right there in the flesh, dropping by to meet you personally.  And just like Barbara Watts pointed out, she could drop on by and introduce herself to you, and not lose the opportunity if she was trying to get that Barack Obama elected.  After all, it would complicate matters a good bit if she was to ask you to vote for him, and ask you to vote for her at the same time.

Now you know it just couldn't be quite that simple.  There's always a cost, no matter what you do.  So the costs are that extra money, and the low turnout.  Well Barbara and Noah both had the answer for you on the money end of it.  They switched it from a number of dollars for the election to how many dollars per home ($4!!), or what percent of the budget (less than 1!!), to make you feel better about spending it.  I don't mean to harp, but these are some of the same people who keep not getting around to giving the Foundation their $20 per year.

So let's say you bite.  You figure it's really not that much, especially to keep that old time small town charm.  But you still have a problem.  How can you rationalize that low turnout?  And keep in mind that everyone, and especially the defenders of the old time small town charm, say they want to try for high voter turnout.  "100%," according to the signs Steve Bernard likes to post.  What I find weird is that he claims, through his signs, that he wants 100% turnout, but he's a proponent of those elections that get uncharacteristically low turnout.  I must remember to ask him how to reconcile that next time I see him.

But there is an answer.  Barbara Watts hinted at it, and Bryan Cooper called it what it was.  Barbara grudgingly agreed to want a democracy, but she said she really wants a "philosopher king."  Bryan said he didn't mind at all that few people vote, because that way, we only get the really knowledgable voters.  An oligarchy elected by the elites and cognoscenti.  Yessir.

I had posed what I thought was a problem, but Barbara and Bryan allowed me to see that it was really the solution.  With talk of keeping the elections small scale so that voters wouldn't be confused by the complicated ballot, including President and all that other nonsense, and so that there wouldn't be so many signs on lawns, confusing potential voters, I thought proponents of stand-alone Village elections were basically saying they thought BP residents were, um, intellectually limited, and needed to be protected from so much commotion.  And I learned that's exactly what these proponents think, and in fact they would just as soon the dimwits stay home.  So we have our quiet little elections, and we don't make enough noise to awaken those who really should just take a nap.  We just get our little turnout of voters who know just what to do.  Often, funny enough, because someone tells them just what to do.

We're a small town, with a small population, of people many of whom have small intellects.  And that's part of our special charm.

Now it wouldn't be a fair telling of the story if I didn't reveal the unexpected twist ending.  You figured this was one of those 3-2 against moving the election, didn't you.  Roxy Ross had a good deal to say, about democracy and the value of people voting and whatever other pie-in-the-sky philosophies she was going on about, and Noah started getting very uneasy.  It appears he didn't like what Roxy was saying, not one bit.  So he tried to shut her down.  He kind of likes shutting people down, and he got a very good tutorial in the techniques of it from Andre Pierre, the tyrant of North Miami.  He decided to practice some of this on Roxy.  Except Roxy just wouldn't be stifled.  It appears she's not an obedient girl.  Like she thinks this isn't the '40s or '50s, and the little lady doesn't just do what the men folk tell 'er to do.  Noah began to unhinge.  (This is exactly the kind of thing Steve Bernard would kill to get on youtube, if only it wasn't his boy who was getting unhinged.)  And you know what he was getting unhinged about?  He said responsible people would certainly vote (he didn't for years that he said he lived here), and he didn't like the way Roxy treated him for the past two years.  Which is unexplained, since he never had anything to do with her or even ever came to a Commission meeting until about 7-8 months ago.  And he definitely poo-pooed the idea that anyone would forget or not notice we were having an election.  But Roxy is going on with her remarks, Noah is turning up the rage (much like he did the day he introduced himself to us last summer, sputtering and raging around like he was going to assault someone, mainly Roxy), and poor Barbara is sitting between them, looking like she's afraid she'll catch a stray bullet, or at least get spit on by Noah.  Well, when it came time to vote, Barbara actually went the other way.  She voted for the proposed Ordinance.  I want to think she saw what was wrong with the other theory, but I have to consider that it occurred to her this was perhaps not the company you want to keep.

I'm frankly sure Steve Bernard will have a word with her.  Tonight was, after all, only the first reading of this Ordinance, and Barbara will have a chance to straighten out and do what Steve tells her.  But I will confess that I considered Barbara the possible lucid free thinker of the three of them.  Maybe she is.  She's certainly the one with detectable charm.