Sounds like the beginning of some kind of solution, doesn't it? Something a little dangerous? Something a little... forbidden? Thirty-two point two percent...
That's the percentage of registered voters in Maui County that turned out to vote in the Hawai'i's Primary Elections. Whether mail-in absentee ballot or early walk-in voting (prompted by the oncoming hurricanes), only 32.2% of Maui's 85,581 registered voters decided for ALL of Maui County (and that includes the islands of Moloka'i and Lāna'i) which candidates would move forward into the General Elections to be held this November.
A recent article here: http://mauinow.com/2014/08/11/voter-turnout-in-maui-county-lowest-in-state highlights the abysmal turnout. Why?! This has been a year where many issues faced our government and the actions (or inactions) of some politicians have proved hazardous or even deleterious to our Hawai'i way of life. There have been complaints throughout not just Maui County but the entire state, of the need to effect a change in the leadership of our government. Yet here we are, looking at the same faces in the same races.
Sure there are some stellar, surprising upsets like Senator David Ige and Mark Takai and a too-close-to-call race between Colleen Hanabusa and Brian Schatz for the seat Schatz currently holds. But there could have been some major upsets if more people had voted.
Plain and simple. If you don't vote, you can guarantee many more years of the "same old stuff". That's how cronies are born: people are too disgusted or don't believe in change so they don't vote. Those that vote keep voting the way they have been and the same people get voted into office year after year to continue their own agendas until they are so firmly entrenched in the government that they somehow become indispensable to us.
It is easy to get frustrated or disillusioned with our system of governance or even with those who would represent us. But let's not allow ourselves to suffer from a form of Stockholm Syndrome and continue to allow those who would oppress us and occupy our governance as they do now.
How do we change things? Voter guides, public events, meet and greets and "coffee hours" don't seem to bring the vote out at election time. Is it ease of voting? Getting registered?
Let me hear it folks. If you didn't vote, why didn't you? You can email me privately at PelesGrrl@gmail.com if you don't want to post me here in the comments section.
I'll be discussing candidates facing off in the General Election, race by race, in my upcoming blog posts. I'll try to be as fair and objective as I can to give you as honest a description as I can. At the end of each post, I'll reveal the candidate I endorse.
32.2%. It seems... that's all it takes.
