All in favor of democracy, cast your vote

I voted again today. In this particular election, I didn't care who won nearly as much as I did the last time I voted: the May 13 Hoboken City Council election, a lively race with 26 candidates for six seats in which my candidate, Beth Mason, was one of the survivors. Nor did I care as much as I will next time: the runoff from that election, a week from today. This was just a primary for assorted local and state offices, with only two minor seats (county executive and county clerk) even contested. On one side, we have the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO), and on the other, a splinter group, Democrats for Hudson County (DfHC). (Hmmm... already this is starting to read like one of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Senior Regional Analyst Michael Shafir's tomes on elections in Moldova or Romania, where alphabet soup is also a factor. We still don't have as many factions of Democrats here as Moldova's wide assortment of parties, but ours is still a lively political scene.) After reading whatever I could find online and in my local newspapers, I decided to vote for the dominant HCDO, primarily because while the DfHC may have a justified grievance or two, their web site seems a bit mean-spirited, amateurish, downright overwrought, and besides they have some serious spelling and punctuation problems.

I voted today not because I feared that the DfHC might manage an upset in those two races and thereby bring ruin upon us by spreading those distressed vibes and misplaced apostrophes to our local government, but because I want to stay in the habit, especially after what I heard the other day. Of the hundreds of people who live in the hundreds of apartments in our building, only a few even bothered to vote in the city council election. Turnout was low all over the city, with only 7,600 (according to the Hoboken Reporter) of Hoboken's more than 38,000 residents exercising their right. Of course, not all residents are eligible to vote, as many are under 18 or are not registered here, or anywhere. But still: Moldova has more political parties than our building has active voters (Moldova even has more ethnic groups than our building has active voters!), yet the people who don't bother voting here love to brag that "this is the best country in the world 'cause we've got democracy." Friends and neighbors, unexercised democracy becomes weak and flabby just as quickly as aging abs. You've got time to go to the gym and ride a bicycle that doesn't go anywhere for 30 minutes while you read The Wall Street Journal, but you can't go across the street to the firehouse and flip a lever or two?

I also voted today for the same reason I sent a message to my Congressman today: to remind our elected representatives that somebody is paying attention. I don't think I changed Rep. Bob Menendez's mind with my plea for him to vote against the Republicans' attempt to replace overtime pay with comp time. But now he has one more message to count when he tells his colleagues there in the House of Representatives that his constituents are opposed to H. R. 1119, so much so that they bother to contact him about it.

If you don't care whether overtime pay is replaced with compensatory time off, if that, then don't bother contacting your own Congressional representative. But if you do, go here to speak up before it's too late: the vote is tentatively scheduled for Thursday.

P.S. Thanks to NJ.com for linking to The Dagley Dagley Daily!