Thursday, June 7, 2012

Slactivism and Satire – Let’s Make Voting Sexy! By Very Smart Gal – Dean Lofton

I received the below very smart commentary from Very Smart Gal, Dean Lofton's blog, and I immediately forwarded it to Very Smart Guy (and old friend), Austin American-Statesman Editorial Page Editor, Arnold Garcia. He liked it so much that he invited Dean to be a guest commenter in the June 7 issue of the paper. Check it out. Very Smart - and fun! (Reprinted with permission) Here's the link to Dean's business (PR). After you read this, if you need a publicists (who doesn't) I suspect you'll want to hire her!

Pssst. Hey Austin, know what's sexy and hip now? Voting!

I'm a little, um, frustrated with my Austin's low voter turnout in the recent city elections on May 12.

The city clerk's office reports that of 824,205 residents, only 461,146 were registered and only 49,336 of those actually voted. How embarrassingly low for one of the most educated populations in an American city that's also on the top of every "best of" list around!

It's understandable the majority of Austin residents have tuned out politics. We're busy!

There are shows to see and festivals to attend.

And we already vote all the time best restaurant, music polls and for our favorites on reality TV shows.

Shaming people with data and phrases such as "civic responsibility" and "participation in the political process" doesn't seem to motivate anyone.

We need a new plan so that we, the people, can actually be represented by the folks making the decisions.

One obvious way to inspire voter registration is to add legalizing marijuana to the ballot and watch a "put down the bong and go register to vote" campaign occur organically in mere moments.
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