Op-Ed: Low Voter Turnout for Primary

Incredulity lead to frustration and then I became furious with the electorate. Our two Amagansett districts had 39 voters, Springs about double that last I heard, and a Montauk district only had 8 by 3:30! One of my correspondents in Montauk told me the only reason she knew of the vote was my email reminding everyone to vote.  I cannot believe the apathy!!!  

School elections are May 15th.  The next election is June 26th for the race between Altschuler vs. Demos, I sure hope we have a better turn out for that one.  

Then there is the General Election in November. Where is the legislation to combine all these different elections into one or two a year?  The enormous expense of hundreds of people working for the elections, poll watchers, coordinators, police and county inspectors, not to mention those in election headquarters, for FOUR elections in one year and hardly anyone shows up to do their civic duty?!  

I've seen the same thing with Amagansett school budgets over the years, with less than 150 people voting on a $4+ million dollar budget.  Over 200 , which, for the foreseeable future, will be , adding to our taxes.

And to top that off, the news media had called the election by the time I got home from closing the polls at 9!  How do they figure they can call an election with 1 percent of the votes counted?  Yes, we live in an electronic age but that doesn't mean the people who vote early in the morning are a better representation of a voter than those who vote after work. Remember, that is how they called Al Gore, incorrectly, for president.  This is infuriating!  

Come on America, wake up, we are losing our freedom while you sleep.

In Liberty,
Lynda A.W. Edwards
East End TEA Party