{"id":21532,"date":"2017-05-07T15:02:16","date_gmt":"2017-05-07T15:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21532"},"modified":"2017-05-07T15:02:16","modified_gmt":"2017-05-07T15:02:16","slug":"mandate-there-is-none-in-this-election-result","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21532","title":{"rendered":"Mandate? There is none in this election result"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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For those of you who might take offense over a scolding because you didn’t bother to vote in Saturday’s municipal election in Amarillo …<\/p>\n

… that’s too damn bad!<\/em><\/p>\n

You’ve got it coming.<\/p>\n

A little more than 15,000 registered cast ballots in the Amarillo City Council election. Roughly half of them voted early. The remainder waited — as I did — to vote on Saturday.<\/p>\n

We’re going to hear some bitching and griping from Amarillo residents about the “power” of Amarillo Matters, a political action committee that backed a competent and qualified slate of candidates for the council; they all won by substantial margins.<\/p>\n

If Amarillo Matters had all that stroke, packed all that punch, why didn’t more residents take a few minutes of time to cast their ballot? Why didn’t those who took umbrage at Amarillo Matters’ push to back its slate energize their own counter-movement?<\/p>\n

Where was the turnout among those who supported Amarillo Matters and those who opposed the PAC?<\/p>\n

The city has more than 100,000 residents registered to vote. The turnout for Saturday’s election fit the norm for Amarillo. Call it whatever you wish: abysmal, dismal, pitiful, pathetic, measly …<\/em> whatever. Any of those descriptions will work. All of them would work, too!<\/p>\n

The candidates who won will comprise an entirely new City Council. They will take office soon and embark on a mission to guide the city, to set government policy and then — I’ll presume — let the newly hired city manager, Jared Miller, implement those policies.<\/p>\n

I do not want to hear any of them talk publicly about a “mandate.”<\/p>\n

The way I see it, they got nothing of the sort based on the turnout. A majority of a tiny minority of registered voters cast their ballots in favor of the individuals who won.<\/p>\n

Look at it this way, as well: That percentage of turnout declines even more dramatically when you\u00a0factor in\u00a0the residents who live here but who aren’t even registered to vote<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Did this group of business leaders — Amarillo Matters — exercise inordinate influence over the election results? No. If it did, then the city would have had to count a lot more ballots than it did.<\/p>\n

If you’re upset at the results of the election — but didn’t bother to vote — I suggest with all due respect<\/em> that you keep your trap shut.<\/p>\n\n

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For those of you who might take offense over a scolding because you didn’t bother to vote in Saturday’s municipal election in Amarillo … … that’s too damn bad! You’ve got it coming. A little more than 15,000 registered cast ballots in the Amarillo City Council election. Roughly half of them voted early. The remainder … Continue reading Mandate? There is none in this election result<\/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],"tags":[288,290],"class_list":["post-21532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21532","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=21532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21533,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21532\/revisions\/21533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}