Allen County commissioner Bruce Symes and I crossed paths Thursday afternoon outside of the courthouse.
Even with my face mask on, he could tell I was smiling.
“I just voted!” I exclaimed.
“The magic never wears off,” he remarked.
And that was it. Having a concrete say in how our government functions and who leads it is truly a privilege.
The only dampener is knowing that only 45% of eligible voters in Kansas actually voted in the 2016 general election. That’s significantly lower than the national average of 61.4%.
According to The Kansas Leadership Center, many are jaded by the system, feeling that money plays too big a role in who runs for office, or that politics is so distasteful these days that they’d just as soon stay away.
It’s hard to argue with the money factor. Candidates supremely qualified to serve in public office are cut off at the knees simply because they don’t have the charisma or connections necessary to raise tens of millions of dollars.
Even so, that’s not how you “grow” voters.
The most effective way is at the local level.
And Mr. Symes’s race for county commission is a perfect example.
In the August primary, Symes faced John Brocker for the Republican nomination. When the polls closed on Election Day, the race was too close to call with Symes leading by seven votes. When the votes were canvassed the following week, Symes ended up the winner, 353 to 345.
In that race, every vote counted.
And the decisions of local officials have just as much an impact on our lives as the Washington, D.C. elites, including funding for our schools and community college, keeping our roads up to snuff, providing for our sheriff’s department and myriad emergency services.
In the August primary, voter turnout 35.17%. Of a possible 8,740 registered voters, a shade more than 3,000 voted; the vast majority registered Republicans.
