Participate. Vote. Make a difference

The Orange County Board of Elections has just recently released the details of the November 8th election for the Town of Monroe. I would personally like to thank the Republican and the Protect Monroe parties for their endorsements of my candidacy for Town Councilman. But mostly I would like to thank the 2,101 residents of Monroe who voted for me. I was truly humbled by the extent of that support. The details provided by the Board of Elections were, however, very revealing. But since it is old news, it will probably not be written up in the print media. Did you know that if you were to exclude those voting districts in the Village of Kiryas Joel from the totals, the results were very different: Neil Dwyer (1,391) and myself (2,076) defeated Dan Burke (1,371) and Harley Doles (649). The ultimate winners for councilman won because of the 4,290+ votes that they received from the voters in Kiryas Joel. Likewise, Morton Marshak (for town justice) and Jim Gulick (for highway supervisor) were the winners in the town districts outside of Kiryas Joel. These results are nothing new since most previous election outcomes have been determined by the block votes from KJ. But did you know that there are 11,179 registered voters in Monroe who do not live in KJ election districts. This voting block is larger than KJ’s by about 3,639 voters. Fifty-eight percent of KJ voters were able to make it to their polling place on November 8th to cast their vote for town councilman. Did you know that 26 percent of the registered voters in the Monroe districts outside of KJ voted for town council candidates. Did the 74 percent who didn’t vote give up and let the KJ block determine the outcome, or don’t they care about their local government? Oh some of them will be at their polling place next November to vote for a president, but their vote will have little impact on the final outcome. Please attend Town Council meetings or watch them on Channel 22 and by the time the next local election comes around in November 2013 you will be motivated to participate in the local elections where your vote can make a difference. Thank you. Dennis C. McWatters Monroe