• dhork@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Non-Federal elections do not have a set date, like the Federal election does. Many localities have important elections on the same ballot and the same day – not just to encourage turnout, but to save money. But some plan their elections on different dates throughout the year.

    For instance, where I live we have to vote on the local school budget and school board, and they always have that election in May because the new board and budget needs to be in place for the school year starting in September.

    • brandon@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Yup, that’s very true just pointing out that it’s not completely stupid that people might think they might have an election today, since it’s the default day such things occur, and contact a representative about it. Ideally, we should be encouraging people to take part in the civic process instead of casting derision on them with various snarky comments, which is what this politician did and what most comments here are doing.

      • dhork@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Except these people aren’t really trying to take part in the civic process. If they were, they would have realized a while ago that there was no local election on the ballot. The information is all public, after all.

        They are getting upset that the TV told them that a brown person was poised to win something in a multicultural city 900 miles away, and there was nothing they could do to prevent it. That’s not snarky, it’s what happened.

        • brandon@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          There is nothing here indicating that people were actually calling about the NYC mayor or Virginia governor races, but just elections in general. The politician is the one who mentioned these races, likely to throw shade on the opposite party.

          Local elections are extremely common off cycle and they tend to be poorly advertised unless elections commissions and other organizations actually put effort into them. Often times, the first time many people see a ballot for such elections is on Election Day.

          • dhork@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            likely to throw shade on the opposite party.

            Why does this throw shade on the six Democrats who live in Kentucky? The guy is a Republican…

            • brandon@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              Republicans have been foaming at the mouth about these elections for the past several months and are taking every opportunity they can to cast democrats as “stupid, crazy, communists”. From what I can tell, this is just a more mild form of it, disguising it as public education. There was no reason for him to even mention these races but he did so anyways, likely to stoke controversy.