As We See It

Not rocking the vote: Low turnout and a win for ‘None of the Above’

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Let’s do a quick exercise (and no running to Google for help): Who’s your city council representative? Okay, how about your Assembly representative? Still nothing? How about your state senator? That’s okay, we’ll wait … I only ask these questions because, frankly, I stumped myself on a few. How I got to this point, I really can’t say: For most of my adult life, I’ve known who all my representatives were. But somewhere along the line living in Nevada, that ceased to be a priority. And so, it would seem, did voting. That pathetic 15.79 percent voter turnout in Clark County for the June 10 primary? Yeah, I contributed to that. Why did so few of us hit the polling place last week? Working late? Laundry piling up? Game 3 of the NBA Finals? Apathy? The result of the Democratic race for governor would seem to suggest it’s the latter, as the majority of voters who actually showed up picked “None of the Above” over eight other choices. It’s embarrassing, sure, but let’s all consider this our well-deserved wake-up call. And let’s agree to do at least one important thing today—get informed on who’s making the decisions that directly affect our communities. Then we can take the next step: Realize we’re part of those communities, too. (Okay, you may Google now.)

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Ken Miller

Ken Miller is the editor of Las Vegas Magazine, having previously served as associate editor at Las Vegas Weekly, assistant ...

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