Bill Wayne's Political Pages - The Gadfly
Gadfly 69
Submitted to the Warrensburg Gazette for November 16, 2000

The Gadfly is a series of letters offering commentary on local issues and published in the Warrensburg Gazette.

Dear Editor

If we’ve ever had an election to prove that every vote counts, this was it! Here in Johnson County, we had races decided by 157 of 16,355 and 295 of 6947. In both races, the margin was less than the number of people who voted in the election but skipped that race. Amendment 2 failed both locally and statewide because people didn’t understand it, not realizing that all it tried to do was make it easier for organizations like the Elks or the Legion to find members to work bingo games. The main reason voters skip a race or vote against an issue is because they don’t know enough to vote intelligently. Unfortunately, the voter guides published in local papers come out too late for the absentee voter and don’t go into the detail necessary to make a really informed decision.

After some thought, I’d like to present an idea. Perhaps some interested citizens could get together and form a Question All Candidates Committee – call it QACC (pronounced like a duck). Instead of asking candidates “why are you qualified”, QACC would develop a specific list of questions relating to the duties of each local position. We should not expect that the Assessor and the Treasurer (to name hotly contested races recently decided) need identical skills and backgrounds.