Low Voter Turnout

The Bronx primary elections are notorious for low voter turn-out. Yudelka Tapia attempted to make her way into Bronx politics and shake up the dingy politics going on in the 14th District, our University, Fordham, Morris Heights, Kingsbridge and Northwest Bronx neighbors are just not all that interested in coming out to participate in filtering out the candidates. It is one of the poorest districts in the U.S. and yet, the shared sense of apathy is not uncommon among the residents. Why should they care about voting and changing policies and such when they still struggle for the basic fundamentals: shelter, food and safety?

They should care because the voting system is the only true power they have to make things different for themselves and for their children.

It seems to me that the primary elections are more important than the general elections. In the primaries, the rotten, selfish, crooked politicians can be stopped at the door. And since those ill-intentioned politicians know that the lay people are generally uninterested in the political game, and that they wouldn't acTUALLy research the candidates or incumbent for voting records or criminal investigations, they take advantage of that by spending tons of taxpayers money on hi-quality advertisements and busloads of street teams pushing printed materials to sway the vote their way. And it works!

But, as we should know already, not everything that glitters is gold. The candidates with decent intentions, little money and even less local government support are shuffled along (usually, the ones who raise families in the community). Meanwhile, those with superhero facades of saving the community from their woes are given the green lite thru the door - onto the next phase of the competition. It's disappointing.

Go to thomas.gov. Become familiar with government... or start with local government.

As President Barack Obama said, "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

kM