Library to Hold Medicare Information Session whiznews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from whiznews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
rgallabrese@heraldstaronline.com
What we did not know then was just how low it would be.
In fact, Bob Gale, who was navigating his first election after being named as the next executive director of the Jefferson County Board of Elections, had said he was optimistic that as many as 20 percent of the eligible voters would cast ballots in the election.
That projection was off, as only 7.9 percent of the 12,804 registered voters in Steubenville bothered to make their voices heard.
One of the reasons, likely, was a lack of ballot issues and candidates. Everyone in the city who was registered had the chance to vote on the renewals of the city’s 0.7 percent and 0.3 percent income taxes both of which easily passed and those who live in the 4th Ward and who registered as Democrats had the chance to vote on the candidate who would represent the party for that seat on the November ballot.
If you haven’t noticed, things are really starting to open up.
In case you’re still not sure, take a look at the daily pages produced by our community editor, Janice Kiaski. They are filled with details about events and gatherings that recently have been held, and, even more important, events that have been scheduled.
It’s a list that seems to grow each day, and one that now includes in-person commencement ceremonies for most of our region’s colleges and universities as well as all of our area’s high schools. Attendance might be limited, and participants likely will be required to wear masks, but graduates will have the opportunity to walk across stages and receive their diplomas during a real, live celebration.
They know when it’s time to give all of us a break.
That’s good for our psyche, but it probably is not, in the long run, good for our democratic form of government.
We’re going through what is, probably, the most off of all of the recent off-year election cycles. Not that we didn’t need a little bit of a break, having come through one of the most contentious presidential elections many of us have ever witnessed.
And in the end, we learned, once again, about the importance of voting. There were about 155,506,321 votes cast for president in November. When all of those votes were counted, Joe Biden won not only the popular vote 81,283,361 to Donald Trump’s 74,222,960 but also prevailed in the Electoral College, 306 to 232.
Feb 13, 2021
There’s a question that’s been asked in many different forms across many years: What happens if they hold an election and no one runs for office?
Residents of communities on both sides of the Ohio River learned they likely will be facing just that situation after filing deadlines for this spring’s primary elections passed in Ohio and West Virginia.
This year’s elections do not carry the pizazz that comes with a presidential race. But what they lack in glamour they make up for in importance. They are the true grassroots votes, the opportunities for residents of communities large and small to fill those positions that have the greatest impact on their daily lives.