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City Council, state Legislature stomp on democracy
By adamg on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 10:01pm
Gov. Patrick last month (thanks, Globe and Herald) signed a bill canceling the September city-council preliminary election, the Bulletin newspapers report. The Dorchester Reporter has more.
City Councilors objected to paying for a preliminary election to whittle a field of nine at-large candidates down to eight for the November general election. Several of those councilors had made it easier to get on the ballot as a sop to former at-large Councilor Dapper O'Neil, who apparently had problems collecting enough signatures to get on the ballot in the old days.
The Reporter says the city election commission had originally decided not to publicize the cancellation of the September primary until after Labor Day, since the commission feels that nobody would care until then.
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Comments
A preliminary election is a
A preliminary election is a massive waste of time and money. There is absolutely no reason I can think of to justify the removal of candidates before the real election.
Other countries manage to have large numbers of people on the ballot at each election on local and national levels without their democratic institutions crumbling to dust, and I think we can manage to make it work as well.