One of the worst lies perpetuated by the media is that the presidential election is the only one that really matters. There are so many elections that have a direct impact on your life that you can participate in – state, city, and county election. These are not generally very partisan. Sadly, local elections often don't have enough options simply because there aren't enough politicians standing for election.
> One of the worst lies perpetuated by the media is that the presidential election is the only one that really matters.
The problems with the electoral system effect all offices which are elected by either plurality or majority/runoff, not just those for Presidential electors. This includes all members of Congress, most Governors and statewide elected officials, most state legislators, most mayors and other elected local executive officers, and the many city and county legislative officers (city council, county supervisors, etc.) that are elected in single-member districts.
There's some of the latter that are elected in vote for N and the top N win elections, which tend to provide slightly more choice, but still less choice (and less effective democratic representation of the choices made) than proportional election.
A tired old bumper sticker quote that I wholeheartedly agree with. Right along with Mark Twain's "If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it."
Parent might be saying the media supports this fallacy by the amount of coverage given.
With the huge number of resources available online for information, I would suggest that the perception of media as only covering presidential elections means that you need to work a little harder and find news sources that give you more valuable content. And if your desired news source doesn't exist, think about making it. For example, my hometown is a town of 20,000 people in a beautiful part of the country, but it suffers from being, at best, a bedroom community for nearby hospitals and colleges since 2008 finally ended the industrial presence. There's a guy there who has decided that he's going to give the town news, and he does fantastically well. He has a facebook page with 10000 followers (remember, the town is only 20000) and summarized positions of all the candidates for the recent city council and school board elections. All his posts have substantial discussions in the comments. In recent months I've had great discussions with high school classmates about where the town is headed, which wouldn't have happened before this facebook page (because we didn't have the information.) We also take a pretty active interest in the town, despite the fact that we all live 500-3000 miles away these days.
That turned into a bit of show and tell. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are people interested in local coverage if it's substantial.
That's a really great story. I'm curious if this guy gets paid at all for this, if he just does it in addition to a day job, and perhaps family, etc. Can you share the link to his page?
I'm also also curious if there (ever) was a town newspaper.
Actually, there still is a town newspaper! I used to read it through every morning, which took very little time considering its size. I feel that this guy covers local politics much better than the local paper ever did. He also shares some interesting events, and does so quickly. Plus, with his updates, you really feel like there's stuff going on, despite it being a small, pretty sleepy town.
I haven't contacted the guy, but I believe he does it on the side. I've been meaning to get in touch with him to learn about him and maybe coordinate with him. The town is looking very seriously at building a new high school on the outskirts of town, losing the current strong location and sending the town deep into debt in the process, which they justify because the current school has some leaks in the roof and, as a 1930s building, doesn't have any flashy new technology built into the classrooms. I've talked with some friends at length about this, and we all had pretty much the same feelings. The last thing you want to do is encourage teachers to spend less time at the board, and more showing PowerPoint; centuries-old buildings are perfectly good places for class, as each of us experienced in college; and they're desperately looking for a cure-all, when the reality is that you have a major demographics shift when you no longer have the huge DuPont plant keeping a herd of engineers in town.
On the other hand, it's a beautiful location, it's incredibly cheap to live and buy a home, and the town has been shifting its development patterns in the last ten or so years. The long lost downtown area is coming back to life, streets are being built with bike space, and narrower so cars are less encouraged to speed, and they're starting to emphasize the great parks, river, and proximity to the mountains.
Finally, when you go there, you're struck by how much a single person could really turn the whole place around and onto an incredible trajectory.
Never thought I'd run into another person from Waynesboro on Hacker News of all places. But, I guess I'm here so there's at least two of us. Small world after all.
There's a tail wagging the dog argument here - in the US, the media are still a profit generating industry, so they're driven by what people want to watch/read. And that means the Presidential candidates. And, in 2016, Trump.
I couldn't agree more. Local elections matter a lot. Especially when local elections in places like Seattle, WA are generating insane amounts of campaign money.
Local elections matter, but the direction of the country is determined at the federal level. That's why there's so much media coverage of it.
That, and the Supremacy Clause. Whatever local laws you vote for are superseded by federal law. By definition, this means federal elections matter a lot more than local elections (even though local elections have a more immediate short-term impact on the populace).
I don't know much about law. If that's the case, how does legal marijuana work in Oregon, Colorado, Washington, and other legal states? Is it federally illegal but the feds just don't interfere?
Presidential elections have what are called coattails [1], ie, the act like major marketing campaigns that drag voters into the booths so smaller-electorate candidates get votes due to that.
We need a TV channel/website that simply states the facts of the positions each politician holds, where they are from, when their elections are coming up and their voting record based on their supposed stance.
There are SO many things that we can do.
We invest supposedly in physical and technical infra, but never in political....
Every campaign website I have ever seen clearly explains the candidates position on all relevant issues. If you are looking for third party sources, you can also see the information compiled be VoteSmart.org and OnTheIssues.org.
Your state's Secretary of State office will list upcoming elections, and BallotPedia.org collects many of these.
The resources are already out there and available. It says something that you didn't even know that though.
Some of the struggle is due to silly arcana. For example, the local deadline for submitting candidate statements is immediately after filing week, but before endorsements can be known. So crucial signals voters rely on are often missing.
The only fix is to keep pushing for improvements. Explain the problems to the gatekeepers, lobby for change.
Oregon has this, but not on television. There's a voter information book that's mailed to anyone who has a mailbox, a couple weeks before ballots go out. It contains non-partisan descriptions of issues, candidate-provided statements, and arguments for/against with a verified source for each. IIRC anyone can pay some small amount of money to have a position/argument included.
