25%? A Very Sad Number

That's the highest percentage for voter turnout seen throughout our area (and throughout PA) yesterday. That means for every 100 registered voters, only 25 of them (and in many cases, far fewer) actually took the time to vote. Unlike the 2008 Presidential election, where people stood in lines to vote, this time there were no delays to worry about, the sun was shining across the state, and important choices needed to be made.

Sadly, we know that most of our "base" - environmentally-concerned, compassionate people who care about (among many other things) animal protection, preserving wildlife habitats, cleaning up the watershed, and regulating those who make their living breeding, raising, and slaughtering animals - did NOT show up in great numbers. How do we know this? By looking at the candidates who won and lost. The winners? The candidates with no positive records and/or stated support for these issues. The losers? All of us. And unless those of us who care about these issues take the time - and we're talking MINUTES here, folks - to pressure the officials and judges who won yesterday to do the right thing, we'll all be paying for this atrocious bout of complacency for decades to come. Local elections - for supervisors, commissioners, mayors, etc... - actually have a greater impact on everyone's daily lives than the national elections do. But less than 25% of us care enough to make a 10-minute stop on the way to or from work, over the lunch hour, or after dinner? That's not only sad, it's terrifying.

Yesterday, we had a chance to fill our courts with responsible judges who care about all life on this planet, but we let them - and therefore ourselves - down. We had the chance to break up the old white boys network and elect progressives (not "liberals", per se, but people who look to the future and don't feel disappointment that it's no longer 1950 - or worse, 1850), and we failed to do it.

I cannot express my disappointment adequately in this format, not without using language that doesn't belong in a civilized forum. I hope and pray that the winners in yesterday's election aren't as regressive as I fear they are, and I'm truly willing - as are all the other leaders of PA LOHV chapters - to work with whoever is now in a position to make the world a better place. In the coming months, we'll be making efforts to get to know the newly-elected better and to present our issues to them, and will hope for the best.

Now... let's focus on 2010 and getting a MUCH higher percentage of the voters out, to elect legislators and other officials who'll do some GOOD. If we fail, yet again, we only have ourselves - every voter who doesn't bother to vote - to blame.