Ridgewood News editorial: Keep voting in April
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Ridgewood News
Governor Christie recently gave local school boards the option to decide whether to move elections to November in a cost-saving effort. The Ridgewood Board of Education made the right decision this week when members voted to keep elections in April.
One of the beauties of Ridgewood is its non-partisanship.
Of course there are disagreements, but keeping political affiliations out of arguments prevents discussion from getting mired in the muck.
Decisions made locally should not be based on the party line, but rather what's best for the village.
While no school board is partisan, mixing the district elections with general and presidential elections every November may pull politics into the process. Arguments that more voters will visit the polls during November elections can easily be countered: Will the extra voters who show up be informed on the issues, or will they see a name on one side of the ballot and pick their candidate that way?
http://www.northjersey.com/news/138181894_Keep_voting_in_April.html
8 comments:
The article's opinion that spring school elections aren't subject to politics is laughable. It's actually easier for a special interest group to sway a spring election, which has fewer voters. Look at how the CRR was able to help get Christina Krauss elected this past year.
Total bunk. It is an incumbent protection racket which limits the number of voters to HSA moms and youth sports dads. Saying they don't want uninformed voters is nonsense. They don't want non school parents/taxpayers voting.
As for partisan, please give me a break. Liberals have been running our school board for years.
Have any opinion you want. Whether you agree with me or not, just show up and VOTE!
People can twist this to suit their own arguments and spin it any way they want, but they can't get around the fact that the people who come out to vote in the spring are the only ones who actually know what they're voting for and care. The vote is about money and yes, it's also about how the money is spent. It's about who will serve us best on the board and sometimes it's about what certain "groups" want. I don't agree with some of those groups and do agree with others, but "special interests" are in fact a real part of voting, in November as well. People who care should come out and vote. If you feel a group is getting the upper hand, then motivate others to vote. But none of us need more ignorant opportunists who just push the buttons closest to their party designation. Diluting the budget and BOE vote with that serves no good purpose.
If you don't or didn't have kids in our school system, you wouldn't know when the election is.
By moving it to Nov. everybody knows and please spare me the line about pulling the lever for the candidate closest to your party line.
Most people don't vote for an office if they don't know the candidates. How dumb do you think the voter is in Ridgewood?
10:38, MOST people vote for a political party, not a candidate. Are you kidding? Do you really think that everyone who votes for the offices that come up for election in November knows everything about all the candidates? Do you?
I mean really, how hard is it to find out when the school budget and board elections are? Takes a lot less research than learning all about all the candidates that run for office in November. It's public information. So if you can't figure out when the school elections are in the spring, please don't try to convince me that you know enough about all the candidates in November to make an informed decision.
The important thing is to bring more voters to the polls - and to save money. To question whether the added voters will be informed is not anyone's place to guess. It assumes that the people who vote in April are more informed, and that is something that you cannot prove. All voters should be encouraged to go to the polls. You can't tell who researches the issues, who votes single issues and who just votes for their neighbor. All votes are equal.
Moving the school elections costs money too 6:47, so don't go counting those savings yet. And although it is common practice for individuals to vote with their political parties in November, not really knowing much about who they are and are not voting for, that is simply not acceptable when it comes to our education issues. If you think that moving the school elections to November will take power away from special interest groups, you are sadly mistaken. These people have friends that would be happy to push a couple of extra buttons as a favor while they are there. I've never found it to be much of a hardship to vote in the spring and I certainly don't want to lose my option to vote on the school budget, as it's also what's in the budget, not just how much it will cost.
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