The school board election is June 6th. But it seems the School District is doing everything in their power to promote low voter turnout. First they announced they would ‘hand count’ the election, in other words, ‘please don’t show up and vote, you may create extra work for us’. They also had an opportunity to put the school start date on the ballot, but used a questionable emailed survey instead. Now they are using vote centers (vote at any precinct) for the election with only 10 precincts that are within blocks of each other in the central part of the city with NO precincts to the NORTH or NORTHEAST. They also did not list the addresses for the sites, just the site names.
If the School District and Board are wondering why voter turn-out is so low, they can just look to this sorry excuse for an election. I would be shocked if they get even 2,000 people to vote in the upcoming, middle-of-the-summer election. NOW that’s democracy at work!
Dark Grey and White areas are SF school district. Cross-hatch is OTHER districts within the SF boundaries.
This is extremely unfortunate. It is just an elitist approach to assure an elitist vote. “Super precincts” or “vote centers” (“Centers?” Didn’t Spicer use that word recently?) are design merely to suppress the vote.
Unless you do not live where you live (Huh?), then isn’t the old precinct voting “center” your most convenient place to vote?
I realize it costs more money and manpower to have all of the precincts open for voting. But so what, its the cost of doing business in a democracy…..Instead of running a democracy like a business for the elites’ interests….
We need to stop trying to facilitate the media, the elite, and the vote counters at the expense of the common voter. Last time I checked, we still thought of ourselves as a democracy and not a plutocracy masked as the former…..
They’re sounding like the city cleptocracy. I don’t have a child in school but I’ll find a polling place and vote against incumbents. The school system is failing residents.
How sad it is, that the government entity which works the closest in the promotion of enlightenment has ironically the darkest attitude when it comes to our electoral process….
It appears providing voters in the election an equal opportunity to vote was not a goal or given serious consideration. Voters near the Renberg Elementary have a much greater distance to travel to reach a polling location than voters near Robert Frost Elementary, which is adjacent to 1 polling place and a few blocks from the Lincoln Hign polling location.
Because vote centers are a relatively new model, the research about them is limited. And while vote centers do allow for any voter to cast their ballot at any location, it appears most voters use the location closest to their home.
And the argument that people in north SF don’t vote as reliably as do people in central SF should not be used as a justification for now designing a voting system that will reinforce that voting pattern by making it even less convenient for voters in north SF to vote and more convenient for voters in central SF.
Now, consider the placement of polling locations as an opportunity to influence the outcome of an election by favoring or disadvantaging groups of voters.
My research of voting patterns in Sioux Falls show the highest voter turnout is north of 26th Street. These are also the voters most likely to walk to their polling location.
The least likely to vote in Sioux Falls is in the southeast part of town. Go figure…
It looks like a floor plan for another Events Center once this one is condemned and imploded.
Plus, I cannot help but notice that most of the “Sean Spicer Centers” encircle the McKennan Park/Pendar Lane area of town.
The way these “Centers” were placed would make Richard Daley seriously impressed.
It has been designed to guarantee a vote from the elite and we know they have their candidate, don’t we?…..