Dear Editor,
I read with interest and some amusement the letter from Louis Meyers about the low turnout in the recent primaries and the apparent lack of participation in recent elections. I wondered if it was a case of sour grapes.
Yes, incumbents won in August. In Burlington, Stewart Ledbetter, a retired newscaster, apparently thought his name recognition and deep pockets entitled him to be a senator. He didn’t win, in part because most of the people I know never saw a piece of information from his campaign, and the news articles we saw were about his fundraising and his avowed concern about affordable housing. Not a compelling case for us to change horses, now was it?
As a local election official, I can say that local primaries are rarely well attended. Vermonters in general are not apparently well-informed about the party system that drives our primaries. We had to explain to a significant number of people why they could use only one of the ballots they were handed.
They generally followed instructions, but I was entertained by the person who filled out all three ballots the same way, picking and choosing candidates from all three ballots and writing in the names of the people they wanted on those ballots where their names did not appear. At the tabulator, we reminded her that only one ballot could be cast, and she happily voted the one with the fewest write-ins.
When elections are about issues that concern people locally, or are hotly contested in the local and national news, we find that participation is up. Perhaps the problem is that no one makes a big deal about the races that Dr. Meyers is unhappy about. I would love to see higher participation in our elections. If the politicians make them interesting, people will come.
Barbie Alsop
Burlington
