This chalk art was at the bus stop on the LAHS side at Orange St. Photo by Jody Benson
BY JODY BENSON
Los Alamos
This morning when a friend and I were decrying the (what else) seeming dissolution of American democracy, I asked him, “Have you already voted?” He shrugged, and with a dismissive shake of the head said, “Nah, I don’t vote in local elections. They don’t really matter. I leave it to people who really care about those issues.”
Uh, “Brad,” that’s a NO. Our Constitution set up a system that is Bottom Up, not Top Down.
It’s we the Bottom-up’s responsibility to tell the Top how we want our communities to function. Then we nurture and elect the people who embody our goals, and more, represent we-the-people’s shared American values. For example, if America values health, education, equality, clean air and water, support for families of all incomes, science, freedom of speech/religion/mobility, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then we elect people who share those aspirations. To those ends, we educate our people as to how to support those values in our personal capacity as parents, workers…voters. And beyond educating our citizens, we also give the rare few who believe in public service—as in for the people service—the opportunity to serve. Hopefully, those people will become the Top.
This education about our rights and how to maintain them starts locally. Yeah, we’re all constantly global on our devices with the constantly global tsunami from everywhere that could make us feel stuck in the La Brea Tar Pit belief in the impossibility of action. But it’s the people on our local governing Boards and Council who give the community its rights, services, and benefits. So ya gotta know who supports your values. And then you support them with your vote.
So few people vote in local elections that yours has the value of an elector from the Electoral College. So vote. If you have kids, grandkids of voting age, tell them to vote, too. Wherever they live they can go to the League of Women Voters Vote 411.org https://www.vote411.org, enter their address, find out the issues, and cast an informed ballot. (By the way, why Vote411? “Back in the day,” 411 was the nationwide, human-operated, telephone directory-assistance number. 411 is also slang for “the whole story.” It’s all about nationwide information.)
Election day is Tuesday. Get informed. Then vote. Like that chalk art frog at LAHS says: “Dia de los Votas 11/4. The 1st step in the democratic process for citizens 18+ years.”
For information on your Los Alamos candidates, check out the local League of Women Voters Voter Guide at https://my.lwv.org/sites/default/files/leagues/los-alamos/voterguide2025.pdf. For information on how and where to vote, please see https://www.losalamosnm.us/Home/Tabs/Whats-Happening/Election-Information