CITY OF AIKEN REFERENDUM-The City of Aiken referendum to determine whether Aiken’s citizens want to switch to non-partisan elections for City Council members will be held on September 9, 2008. All regular polling places will be open from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. I am opposed to the change but voted for the referendum in order to give citizens the option. Please go to the polls and make your wishes known.
The proponent’s arguments for change are:
1. Aiken is one of the few municipalities in South Carolina that still holds partisan elections for city elections.
2. More qualified candidates will run if they do not have to affiliate with a political primary.
3. Party primary filing fees are too high.
4. City business is by its very nature non-partisan.
The opponents’ arguments against change are:
1. The current system works well especially in recent years when more candidates are entering the primaries.
2. Registered citizens of either party can and do vote in primaries.
3. If candidates have not declared their affiliation voters will not know their leanings on important issues affecting all governmental bodies.
I hope this election gets suitable attention from the Aiken Standard and that the turn-out is high.
ReplyDeleteThe Aiken Standard is in favor of non-partisan elections and will do its customary biased reporting.
ReplyDeleteI am opposed to non-partisan elections. There is no honest and pressing reason to do it. "Beware the paradise proferred by politicians".
ReplyDeleteGlad to see your opposition to this idea.........if our country was founded on a two party (or more) system, with appropriate checks and balances, etc. and if the proverbial saying "that all politics is local" has any truth.................then non-partisan local elections just don't pan out in my book............and since when has Aiken won any municipal awards, etc. or achieved great progress by copying the known failures of the rest of the state............A no party system will turn into and is essentially a one party system...........the Special Interest Party (SIP)...........however, they will not "sip," they will "binge"...........and if all politics is local, this idea could eventually spread to the state and the nation, and in many ways, has already................kind of like the bad idea of a one world government, etc.......The impetus behind this idea is that everybody is afraid to run...........afraid of who..........well, in my mind they are afraid of the same people who will benefit most from non-partisan local elections.....................if this "works" it will be because many special interest groups will now subversively submit candidates for election in bulk and soon we will be engulfed with the same problems our friends are having just a hop, skip, and a jump across the river............and elsewhere............however, once changed, the decision will never be reversed..................
ReplyDeleteI think we all like to believe in the democratic participatory process.
ReplyDeleteSo long as the local political Town Committees act as election candidate "gate-keepers", many more much more qualified candidates will be passed-up for the "good old boy" instead.
Too many local political parties make party control the top priority over the good of the community second. Except for the bragging rights, nobody wins.
DN Connecticut