post-election blues, city style

My fair city (the one I work for) had an election yesterday. At stake were four of the eight city councilmember seats.

We've had this grumbling of the citizens, a taxpayer revolt, building up for months now. With half of the city council seats at stake, you'd think we would have had a high voter turn-out.

Not so. Would you believe only 9 percent of the 156,146 registered voters . . . a record low . . . bothered to take the few minutes required to go vote? The margin of victory was only 257 votes in one race and 611 votes in another race. The final outcome in one of the races hung in the balance until nearly midnight.

As it turned out, two "outsiders" who are critical of the mayor's fiscal policies got elected. That may be good news to disgruntled voters but the 91 percent who stayed away from the polls can claim no credit for the results. If any of them are not happy with the results they can share the blame.

One solution to the problems of our government at all levels - federal, state, and local - is to vote the rascals out. We don't do that. (In our case, the two "outsiders" who got elected were not running against incumbents.) Maybe we deserve what we get.

Ridiculous.