Pathetic voter turnout in municipal elections Tuesday is an ill omen for the future of our republic.
In this area, a handful of residents in Baltimore City, Aberdeen and Bel Air decided who will lead and tax everybody.
An overwhelming majority of potential voters stayed home. This sad trend is continuing decades of decline.
How many times do we all ? even many who fail to vote ? have to bewail the increasing inability of candidates to spark a pulse in the electorate?
When will politicians start delivering honest, solid, specific ideas to solve our problems, enhance our strengths, leave more of our money in our pockets and efficiently provide the minimum services of government?
Probably never as long as we fail to hold them accountable at the polls. The worse their performances, the fewer of us bother to vote.
They are turning the election cycle into a vicious cycle of voter apathy from the smallest town to the highest office in the land.
Even in Aberdeen, where a hard-fought race for mayor resulted in a record turnout, only about 20 percent of the voting-age population showed up. The other 80 percent either didn?t register or if registered, didn?t bother to vote.
Upstart Mike Bennett toppled incumbent Mayor S. Fred Simmons 1,323 to 908. Aberdeen may be a town of about 15,000, but the issues are huge.
Simmons openly wore a gun, pushed tough law-and-order programs and backed Wetlands Golf Course annexation. Former state trooper Bennett credited his win to meeting a lot of voters: “We went house to house several times and covered the entire city at least twice.”
Even so, Bennett still takes office with only about 13 percent of the voting-age population behind him even if he met them all during his campaign.
Over in Bel Air, where neither acrimony nor campaign fervor fired up voters, about 14 percent of those registered to vote showed up, less than 11 percent of those old enough to vote.
Top vote-getter Mayor Terence Hanley?s 616 puts him back into office with about 8 percent.
So, an exciting hard-fought campaign makes about five points difference.
All look like centers of civic diligence compared to Baltimore City. There, where municipal mismanagement, waste, fraud, corruption and extortionate taxes are expected as civil birthrights, less than 8 percent of the voting-age population kept Mayor Sheila Dixon on the job.
Don?t dare let any of these public servants try to tell us they have a “mandate.” Never allow them to even think the people have spoken.
The overwhelming mandate is for none of the above, 80-90 percent of the people speak with a deafening silence.
