What a Contest!

Photo by Edmond Dantès

People who love sports may get it. I love elections. A general election is a like a Super Bowl for me. I find them thrilling. Many don’t see the appeal. I think it’s their lack of participation. Unlike professional sports, elections are not for spectators. They are for everyone. Even if all you do is vote, you can choose to become invested, and no I don’t mean financially. You already are financially invested. The people elected to every level of office will decide what your taxes should cost and how our governments should spend that money. The more you learn about the candidates, and pick your team, so to speak, the more you will find yourself wanting to know the results as they come in.

You look up the candidates on the ballot. You compare their positions on issues. You attend an event online or in person, where you can hear them speak. You visit their campaign website and submit a question to them. They respond. You meet them and shake their hand. If you truly like a candidate, you may find you are compelled to help them win their race. You volunteer to make calls or knock on doors. Now you’re really in it. This is exciting!

Think about how much people pay attention to Presidential elections. 154 Million people voted in the 2020 election, and yet people are vastly more attuned to that 1 election than they are to their local races. This year, 2023, is a local election year. We won’t get 154 Million people turning out to vote this year, but how many are missing a fantastic opportunity?

Does your city have 1 Million people? Does your town have way less? Consider how much power you have this year. Your vote is worth a lot. Candidates for office this year will be courting you. They will likely be willing to take your call, answer your questions, and listen to your concerns. Think about it. If you take the time to look up the candidates, you can ask them questions. The really good candidates will answer you directly. They may even pick up the phone and call you. Get a group of neighbors together, and you could even contact a candidate to ask for a meeting with all of you for a Q&A. A candidate who intends to listen to their constituents will jump at the chance to hear your questions and talk with you all.

Investing this time in getting to know the candidates in local elections will help you in the long run. You will be that much more aware of if they keep their promises once elected. This is how we get it done.

Conversely, if you can honestly look around, see that things should be better, and know they could be better, but you can’t be bothered to invest a little time in making it better, then how can we all move forward together in any positive way? Some may say voting won’t make things better, but I swear it’s the only thing that will. Billions are spent in pushing rhetoric that your vote doesn’t matter, and more so in restricting your access to your ballot. Fighting automatic registration, mail-in voting, early voting, how many polling locations are available, and requirements for you to be able to cast a ballot.

Every person voting is worth more than all that money, but it takes each person ignoring the naysayers, keeping their head down, being informed about the candidates, their records, their resume, and what promises they are making. Are your representatives making it harder for you to vote? If everyone says no, a lot of people are wrong.

Here are some hacks to help you get started -

1. Google your county and “Board of Elections” i.e. Madison County Board of Elections. Your state may call it something a bit different, but you should find a good result for your local government elections site. This site is where you can look up your registration. Don’t sleep on confirming you are registered. It takes 2 minutes and you don’t want to show up to vote, only to find out your registration was purged.
2. Visit vote411.org and look up what is on your ballot. This is a site put together by the League of Women Voters and it is fabulous. Candidates have the opportunity to put in their info and answer questions. You can see all the candidates in every race, compare them, and create a quick sheet for how you will plan to fill out your ballot. I find it particularly helpful in local years, when we may have multiple seats to fill for school boards.
3. Mark the election on your calendar. On your local government elections site, check to see if there are mail-in ballots or early voting. If you can do one of those, then you can get a jump on casting your vote, so you won’t have to find time on election day.

For making it this far, I thought I would share with you the excitement I’m having with my local Democratic primary. It shouldn’t be exciting, but it certainly isn’t boring.

I’ve never been a huge fan of my current County Legislator, Rachel Barnhardt. She ran against a member of our Assembly Harry Bronson years ago. She claimed he was being misogynistic and sexist towards her. I worked with Harry Bronson when I was fresh out of college. He is one of the kindest people you will ever meet, and those 2 descriptors don’t belong anywhere near him. It really appeared that she was just part of the trend of local journalists who decided politics would be a good gig. Part and parcel with that, she focuses on politics and often paints herself as the victim of anyone who doesn’t support her.

Even though I haven’t been a huge fan, she has been more progressive than I expected. It looks like she does her research and is working to get good things done. I don’t like the veneer of politics over public service, though. I see the photo op and the carefully crafted words, trying oh so hard not to get tagged or to offend anyone. I get it. Why do you think I didn’t go into politics? I have a degree in political science. I knew to stay away from that life. It will suck the good out of you, or beat you down with red tape and bureaucracy. True public servants are the ones I look for because they manage to cut through the tape and get stuff done. They collaborate, they listen to the public, and they bring people together.

This year Rachel has a primary challenge. Allan Richards. I don’t know too much about him, but he has stopped at my house twice while knocking on doors to get to know the district. Eventually, I decided to support him. It’s a scary thing to back a candidate. Scary? What could be scary about that? Well, I’m putting my trust in someone. What if they turn out to not be the public servant I hope they will be? What if they are really in it for their own gain?

This is the hard part of the democratic process. We can’t just vote for someone and hope it goes well. We have to follow up. One of two things will happen. The person we voted for will win or an opponent will win. We can’t just throw our hands up if we don’t get our choice. We need to follow up. If our pick wins, we can’t just assume they will do everything they promised. We need to follow up.

So I am deciding to take a chance on Allan Richards. I want to see if he will be more public servant than politics. If so, I will continue to support him. If not, I will support a challenger in the next election. Apparently, Rachel or her team saw the Allan Richards lawn sign on my property, because she sent me an email.

I thought it was good that she reached out, and that she let me know about the donation he received. I would like to better understand it. I took the time to respond and let her know my thoughts.

Unfortunately, instead of hearing my concerns, maybe picking up the phone and having a conversation with me, she instead dismissed my criticism, made herself out to be the victim of attacks, and really wants me to know how much she supports Black Lives Matter (lots of virtue in this one).

Some time went by. I thought about responding, but honestly, she didn’t really respond to my criticism like she wanted to hear it. She just wanted to dismiss it. Then she emailed me again, with a link to a local radio show the 2 candidates did together.

For those who are in the 17th county legislative district, here is that link: https://www.wxxinews.org/show/connections/2023-06-15/primary-candidates-for-monroe-county-legislature-district-17

I could do a whole other piece picking that duel interview apart.

This time, she went all out labeled Allan as sounding like a Republican and me as a bad ally. To be clear, I don’t have a Black Lives Matter flag on my porch. I did, but it had been up so long it got worn, so I got a new flag that says a bunch of things like Science is Real and Love is Love. It’s been switched for over a year. More to the point, it’s pretty clear she’s saying I’m not an ally to the Black community if I support Allan Richards over her. She’s insisting that she is an ally and that I’m a fake ally, because of my flag and supporting a candidate who accepted a donation from the Locust Club.

Let’s be super clear here. I don’t know if I’m an ally. I know I try to be one, but it’s not for me to say. I really don’t think it’s for super-white Rachel Barnhardt to decide that either. I’m not out here taking photo ops and dropping names of organizations to imply that I’m in “their” camp. “They invite me to BBQs, don’t you know?” That’s what I hear when she talks about Black Lives Matter.

I did email Allan Richards to ask him about the donation. He replied asking me to call him, so we could have a conversation. I called and left a message. He text back while I was leaving the VM, saying he would call me. More on that in a bit.

I responded to Rachel because now it was just getting rude. She does want my vote right?

Again, instead of hearing my criticism of her tactics, she again calls me a hypocrite for supporting a candidate who accepted a $1,000 donation from the Locust Club. This is the worst thing she could find about him, but it is fueling this exchange.

Now in this last one, she points out that she recommended me to become an ED rep. She thinks that never would have happened without her. I don’t know if she’s aware that I used to be the Director of Operations for the county committee. I used to be an ED rep, about 20 years ago. Also, not for nothing, recommending me to be an ED rep doesn’t mean you bought my vote, and it’s ridiculous to me that someone would attempt to use political muscle like that.

There it is again. The politics over public service. If she was in it for the public service, if that was her focus, she might have taken more time to talk with me instead of seeing 1 flag, 1 lawn sign, and deciding she knows everything about me.

I text Allan once more to try to connect. He called me on my way to the grocery store. I sat in the East Ave Wegman’s parking lot for 22 minutes talking with him on the phone. We had a nuanced conversation about police accountability, and what should be the onus of the administration vs the union meant to represent their employees. I did point out that the union also lobbies the state legislature to insulate their employees, to which Allan conveyed his support for Daniel’s Law. He is actively working to get it passed.

For those interested, this is the legislation: https://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?sh=printbill&bn=A4697&term=2021&Text=Y

The sponsor of the Assembly bill (A04697) is Harry Bronson, and the sponsor of the Senate bill (S04814) is Samra Brouk. If you’re like me, reading actual legislation is dense and full of legalese. I’m not an attorney and prefer a more plain language summary of what it would do. This site helps summarize this legislation: https://www.danielslawny.org/

This is exactly where I was hoping he would go with this conversation. I’m not an expert on the issue of police in our neighborhoods, and I’m not going to pretend to be. I also know it’s a complex discussion to have and one that cannot be boiled down to a lawn sign, a supportive flag, or a campaign donation. We have to be willing to come together and have real discussions about big issues like this.

Allan took the time to have a conversation with me on a Sunday when he had just finished going door to door to talk with voters and was headed to a bbq. He could have just emailed me a 2 sentence explanation for the donation, but instead, he wanted to have a back-and-forth. He let me ask questions, and he followed up with some of his own. They weren’t accusatory or judgmental. It was fact-finding and meant to help us find common ground.

That’s what I’m looking for in a candidate. I am going to take a chance on him.

So why is this exciting? I have to choose between 2 candidates, and I found a clear winner. It’s not always this easy to tell the difference. Sometimes candidates are closer in their ideology, rhetoric, and agenda. At times, it’s not an easy choice.

Some might get frustrated when there isn’t a perfect candidate. Spoiler alert: there is no such thing as a perfect candidate. I have often had to choose between candidates who weren’t perfect. They didn’t check all the boxes. I disagreed with them on one or more of the issues.

What we can’t do is sit this out. It’s our job as citizens to be as informed as possible. It’s our job to take sides. One of the candidates on every ballot in every election will represent you in elected office. It is on each of us to do the homework.

Get to know the people who want to represent you. Cast your ballot knowing where they stand on the issues, and if they are an incumbent, check if their voting record matches what they say. If it doesn't, reach out to them and ask them for an explanation. See if they respond and how they respond.

Call it tense, call it exciting, but it certainly isn’t boring. It is not for spectators, and it’s definitely important. This is the only way our democracy will work. We must work at it. When we do, we might find that it gets interesting. Really interesting.

If you invest in learning about the candidates, and picking your team, you may find yourself watching the returns come in on election night. As the votes are tallied a check mark will appear by a candidate’s name, signifying that they have won, and you might just exclaim “What a contest!”.