The deluge is almost over.
The inane commercials—a candidate is being demonized because as a defense attorney he represents criminals!
The race-horse punditry of polls, soundbites, “October surprises” and dubious partisan narratives as deep (and dreary) as battlefield trenches.
The mailboxes stuffed with flyers, a constant flurry of text messages, e-mails (some with emojis!), phone calls and knocks on doors, soliciting, above all, whatever donation amount you can afford!
The sledgehammer assault and sensory overload that’s been waged upon the citizenry for months now just to vote has been unprecedented.
By party hacks and campaign toadies, democracy mavens and corporate virtue-signalers, celebrities, athletes, famous people and everyday folk who need you to vote a certain way so they can have health care, a job, the right to vote and their lives back from sinister forces that have conspired against them for far too long.
Companies, sports teams, non-profits and other institutions will be taking off all of election day to exercise their franchise on Tuesday. And they’ll let you know ceaselessly, especially on their social media feeds.
If you believe the overheated rhetoric, in just a few days’ time we will be conducting the most important election of our lifetime!
By my count, this has been the case for at least the last 20 years, when a bitter presidential election was determined by a single vote in the U.S. Supreme Court—after a farcical episode of butterfly ballots and hanging chads in Florida.
Another epic—and ridiculously expensive—presidential campaign is commanding much of the oxygen this fall, with two aging boomers striving to goad outdated and increasingly polarized party bases to turn out like never before.
For the vast majority of us who don’t fall into either tribalized camp, this feels like the most dispiriting election of our lifetime.
We’ve been ready for this to be over for months, and not because we don’t think elections are important.
They are. But what comes after them is even more important.
Whether you’ve already voted or will do so on Tuesday, exercising your franchise is the easiest part of citizenship. It’s purely transactional, with no further commitment to follow the exploits of those elected to serve us.
Nearly 60 percent of Cobb’s nearly 540,000 registered voters have already cast their ballots, and it’s roughly 50-50 between those voting in person and those mailing in or dropping off absentee ballots.
Two U.S. Senate races in Georgia, a battleground election in the 6th Congressional District and several high-priority legislative races in East Cobb are driving the turnout as much as the presidential race.
So are vigorous races for seats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners and the Cobb Board of Education that could result in Democrats taking control of both.
In East Cobb, where Republicans have dominated for decades, Democrats are contesting everything, including races where GOP incumbents rarely had to worry about any kind of a challenge.
Whatever your politics may be, it’s good to see more candidates running in either major party, especially those who have never sought elective office, and who are younger and represent an upcoming generation pining to make a difference.
What happens here at home—in the Georgia legislature, the halls of Cobb County government and on the increasingly fractious Cobb school board—has never mattered more.
As the last eight months have shown, decisions by state and local elected officials or appointed leaders serving at their pleasure have affected every single aspect of life for every single citizen.
The response to COVID-19 in Georgia and Cobb County will last for many months, if not years, to come.
Whatever you think of how the pandemic has been handled, keep in mind that all of these decisions—to force businesses and schools to close or go online, restrict public gatherings, curtail civil liberties and deprive us of many of the activities that make life worth living—were done without any public discussion, votes by elected bodies or the consent of the governed.
In Georgia, as in every other state and many nations of the world, once a public health emergency was declared, decisions affecting nearly every single aspect of society were made outside of the usual democratic channels, heavily based on guidance by unelected public health advisers.
This cannot and should not continue indefinitely. There need to be specific goals and objectives that are made clear to citizens, not continuously extended emergency declarations.
It’s incumbent upon governors, mayors, county officials and school superintendents to weigh the cost-benefit factors of a COVID response that considers the economy, education, and social well-being of all citizens as well as public health.
If you haven’t yet voted, think about whom you would trust to make these decisions in the future. Regardless of how you voted—or didn’t—the most serious obligation all citizens have is to hold these leaders to account.
Even if you’re politically homeless like I am—my first vote for president was the Republican Congressman-turned-independent John Anderson in 1980—the supposed perils of not voting are being used to humiliate you publicly.
Among the most noxious items in this year’s political mailbag was not one, but two flyers from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, reminding me that I didn’t vote in 2018.
I’m not embarrassed by that, but this is a particularly slimy way to shame people into voting: Mailing you a flyer anyone can read and assigning you a “voter score” that is “average” and won’t cut it in their minds. As though any voter has an obligation to meet the muster of a partisan political action committee that sent an unsolicited mailing.
The second flyer was even more galling, saying that in order “to improve your voting record” I must vote. “Remember: Who you vote for is private, but whether you vote is public record.”
This from a political party that has made “voter protection” a major part of its agenda.
If I hadn’t voted before I got these flyers, I would have made sure that anybody I did vote for would work to change laws like this. Whether or not you vote ought to be nobody else’s damn business any more than whom you voted for—or against.
Such are the stakes of an election that’s gone on seemingly forever, and may last well after election day.
Many of those hopelessly, shamelessly obsessed with getting you to vote will soon skunk away, at least until the next election. Those of us more concerned with what those elected to office will do with their power have never had a more daunting task.
Related Content
- Emergency precinct change made for East Cobb polling station
- Sewell Mill, Mountain View libraries closed on election day
- How to get, complete and return an absentee ballot in Cobb
- Ga. Secretary of State’s office creates absentee ballot tracker
- Cobb absentee ballot dropbox locations include 4 in East Cobb
- Cobb elections 411: registration, absentee balloting and more
- East Cobb 2020 Elections Guide
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
