Culver City Observer -

With the state sanctioning of voting

by mail due to the pandemic and for

the convenience of all currently registered

voters. You are now able to fill out

your ballot while sunning in your back

yard, lying in bed, or even while sitting

on your bathroom throne. Unfortunately,

the sanctity of the polling booth has

been lost.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Wanting to get more voter participation

is quite commendable. But, with

over 80% of our local electorate participating,

it’s beginning to look like the

cost of running future local city council

campaigns may have gone from a

reasonable $15K to $20K, to being well

over $60K. It will cost this much to send

out the campaign materials containing

the candidate’s message to all the possible

voters.

This sudden, geometrical increase

in campaign costs probably will leave

many fine, local candidates without

much of a chance to participate, let

alone, challenge an incumbent, or actually

win a council seat.

Outside Influence

If local candidates really want to

have a chance of becoming a council

member, they would have to raise

much more in funding than what usually

comes from local grass-roots supporters.

In order to raise enough, they

might have to look outside our city and

accept campaign contributions from

well-heeled individuals or (PACs) political

action committees.

The question comes to mind, that if

more voter participation is a virtuous

goal, do we really want to accept the

consequences of having local candidates

look for outside money from

individuals or PACs who want to buy

controlling interest in our local politics?