{"id":21463,"date":"2017-05-04T20:59:31","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T20:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21463"},"modified":"2017-05-04T21:00:01","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T21:00:01","slug":"no-gunfire-in-amarillo-get-out-and-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21463","title":{"rendered":"No gunfire in Amarillo — get out and vote!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I visited today at lunchtime with Daniel Martinez, a candidate for the Amarillo College Board of Regents — and heard a bit of news about the upcoming local election.<\/p>\n

It is that, according to Martinez, about 7,000 voters cast ballots early. Martinez thinks that bodes well for a big turnout when Election Day rolls around on Saturday.<\/p>\n

I do not share my friend’s optimistic outlook.<\/p>\n

What I think it means, sadly, is that a lot of Amarillo’s voters are casting their ballots early. And that’s it!<\/em><\/p>\n

Then I watched a video posted on Facebook of an interview with outgoing Mayor Paul Harpole. The mayor said the city is projecting a turnout of 12,000 to 14,000 voters. Let that sink for a moment.<\/p>\n

Harpole told Panhandle PBS’s Karen Welch that the city has 104,000 registered voters living here. Amarillo’s population is on the cusp of 200,000 residents.<\/p>\n

If Harpole’s projection is correct, that puts the percentage of voter turnout at slightly more than 10 percent.<\/p>\n

Hey, let’s stand up and cheer!<\/p>\n

On second thought, let’s not!<\/p>\n

Harpole then told a story about a couple in Fallujah, Iraq, who made sure to vote while gunfire was erupting just blocks away. The wife handed her infant child to her husband while she voted, Harpole said; she came back out, took the baby, and then her husband went in to cast his ballot.<\/p>\n

Harpole then told Welch that Amarillo residents don’t have to face the prospect of getting shot on the street while they vote — which is his way of saying that we have no excuses, none at all, for refusing to have our voices heard in this critical election.<\/p>\n

I am running out of ways to urge residents to cast their ballots in these local races. The very idea that nine out of 10 Amarillo residents would sit this election out — and leave these decisions to other residents —\u00a0means that the democratic process is in danger of going on life support.<\/p>\n\n

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I visited today at lunchtime with Daniel Martinez, a candidate for the Amarillo College Board of Regents — and heard a bit of news about the upcoming local election. It is that, according to Martinez, about 7,000 voters cast ballots early. Martinez thinks that bodes well for a big turnout when Election Day rolls around … Continue reading No gunfire in Amarillo — get out and vote!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[288,7089,304,3487],"class_list":["post-21463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-political-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-college-board-of-regents","tag-amarillo-election","tag-panhandle-pbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21464,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21463\/revisions\/21464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}