Don’t vote It’s not worth the time

We’ve grown weary of urging readers to go vote. In advance of every election we lay out our most passionate arguments for why voting matters and every year less than a third of registered voters turn out.

So just don’t. Stay home. Who wants to vote in boring borough assembly races anyway? Who cares anyway what these guys decide about how much we pay in property taxes, or whether new roads and schools are built?

Really, who cares that very recent assembly decisions have had immediate impact on neighborhoods that saw a mini-boom in construction of cell towers no public notice, no seat at the table to weigh the options?

Who cares that the borough assembly can more or less directly raise and lower your property taxes?

Yes, the borough is responsible for the bulk of the emergency services provided here, but when’s the last time we needed those? It’s not like it floods around here or anything. When it comes to local elections, it’s probably better just to hit the snooze alarm and wake up in time for November’s big tally.

And don’t even get us started on how boring the school board is. Have you ever been to one of their meetings? Seriously, who cares how the bulk of our local tax dollars, not to mention millions and millions of state dollars are spent? Who cares what the borough’s biggest employer is up to? Who cares whether our children receive a good education? We can afford to be disinterested.

And the cities? Please. We can’t be bothered to care about their zoning decisions and the Palmer smoking ordinance. Who cares about sales taxes and city property taxes?

We’ve got better things to do on Tuesday. Come on Christmas. If we can just get past Tuesday, roll through November, it’s straight on to Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We’ve all got far better things to do than vote.

We knocked an idea around in the newsroom this week about how people would react if some totalitarian regime decided that 70 percent of us are not allowed to vote. What would happen if only 20 percent of us were allowed to vote? Would voting panels decide who among us was worthy of a vote?

We imagine this sort of thing would rightfully inspire armed revolution among Alaskans. And yet it has happened. Silently, 70 percent of us already have ceded these rights, and thus far, everyone seems fine with it.

To those who would argue that local elections aren’t important, we ask when was the last time something someone did in Washington, D.C., directly impacted their daily lives? Was it as recently as the day your kid went to school and found there were 30 other kids in her class? Or the day that tower went up next door by surprise?

So, stay home. It is best to let others speak for you anyway. Do something important with your time on Tuesday instead — maybe sing some Christmas carols.