FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 6, 2011
The mood in the room was clear. The people of Tucson spoke. And were promptly ignored by our City Council. Over the course of an hour, citizens attending last night’s City Council meeting implored the Council not to adopt a mail-only voting system for our elections.
They pointed out-rightly-the risk of increased voter fraud, of the problem with ballots being mailed out mere weeks after the primary when many voters still don’t know who the candidates are and what they stand for. They pointed out the fact that anyone who wants to vote by mail already can. And at the end of that hour Councilman Richard Fimbres read a three-page prepared statement supporting the change, and the citizens of Tucson got ignored again.
“The City Council said that this was what the people wanted, so why didn’t they vote to send this issue to the ballot in November?” asked Mayoral Candidate Shaun McClusky. “Steve Kozachik had the right idea-let the people decide. But this City Council doesn’t work like that, they just do whatever they think is best for themselves.”
There was almost no time for public input or discussion on an issue that was proposed and passed in a single week. A single week and one hour of public input to determine the course of our elections, maybe the single most important responsibility any citizen has?
“That’s why I’m running for Mayor,” McClusky continued. “I’m not going to let the citizens of Tucson keep getting trampled on by this runaway Council.”
Although Councilman Kozachik received some support for his alternate motion from Councilman Paul Cunningham, the rest of the council, including Mayor Bob Walkup, voted along party lines to decrease the security and transparency of our elections.
Well, our elections might not be secure anymore, but at least we answered one question last night: Is Bob Walkup a Republican? In Name Only.
