Today is election day and up for election here in Orem, UT is the mayor's seat and three city council seats. Here's my beef with local elections: it is almost impossible to find out anything about the candidates. In theory, local elections are very important because you are choosing the people who will most directly affect your life, what parks get built, where streetlights go in, etc. But it is hard to find out anything about them without directly contacting the candidates. Being an introvert, I'm very unlikely to do that even in the name of doing my duty. They did have a total of 3 meet the candidate nights, but it is hard to find out when those are going on. The newspaper runs a short article about the candidates, so I found out their occupations and a 2 sentence quote and that is what I based my decision on.
Now in the current race, one of the mayoral candidates and one of the city council members had websites. It was enough for me to decide I didn't like the current mayor due to some of the things he listed as accomplishments and I considered unfortunate events. It was also enough to decide that I did like the city council member.
In this day and age of blogs and low cost web hosting, It would be nice if candidates created a free blog, post a few of his or her views, and let the city/county election commission know where it is. It seems like the candidates are wasting a great chance to let people know what they stand for.
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