EDITORIAL: Marin voters have a crucial job to do on Election Day
Nov 06, 2012 (Menafn - The Marin Independent Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --'DEMOCRACY is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried."
That famous 1947 Winston Churchill quote was featured on the reader board in front of San Rafael's Miller Creek Middle School on Monday -- the day before this nation goes to the polls to select its president.
After a combative presidential campaign and seemingly endless commercials about some of the propositions on California's ballot, voters get the final word today.
In Marin, 155,025 residents are eligible to vote. You have until 8 tonight to cast your ballot or turn it in if you haven't done so already.
The race for president traditionally results in a high turnout. There's more for Marin voters to decide than their preference for who is in the White House for the next four years.
They will select Democrat Jared Huffman or Republican Dan Roberts to succeed Rep. Lynn Woolsey in the House of Representatives.
Term limits forced Huffman to give up his Assembly seat. The race between two Democrats, Michael Allen and Marc Levine, for his seat has turned into a big-money, high-profile contest.
Statewide, voters will decide whether to raise the sales tax by a quarter-cent to avoid deep budget cuts for public schools and universities. They also are being asked whether it's time to scrap the state's death penalty and replace it with a maximum sentence of life in prison without
parole, whether genetically engineered ingredients should be disclosed in food labeling and whether payroll deductions for political campaigns should be banned.
In Marin, voters will decide the fate of the county's proposed nine-year, quarter-cent sales tax increase to help pay for local parks, farmland protection and management and acquisition of open space.
There are issues that are even closer to home -- school taxes in the Mill Valley and Shoreline school districts, a public safety tax in Ross and races for seats on the Sausalito City Council and the Sausalito Marin City school district, Marin Healthcare District and Stinson Beach Water District boards.
In 2012, we've seen examples of the best and the worst of local politics. We've witnessed the impressive civic spirit of door-to-door campaigning and torrents of campaign money from outside the county that have paid for for attack ads.
Those campaigns come to an end today. Voters get their say.
Marin County has 98 polling places. Elections crews will be on hand all day to answer calls about ballots and polling places. The Registrar of Voters phone number is 473-6456. Answers are also available at www.marinvotes.org.
Today's election is democracy in all its flawed glory. Winston Churchill was right in 1947 and his words still ring true today: It may not be perfect, but it works better than any alternatives we've seen.
But for this ongoing experiment in democracy to really work as our Founding Fathers intended, we all need to exercise one of our most important and precious rights.
Vote.
The polls are open until 8 tonight.
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Copyright (C) 2012, The Marin Independent Journal, Novato, Calif.
