TacomaGeekery
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Oct. 22, 2008 at 9:12am
Pierce County Mystery Candidates
I got my absentee ballot this week and started marking in my choices and hit a brick wall when it came to a few of the county positions. Not recognizing some of the names (or all of them, in the case of candidates for assesor-treasurer), I thought I'd swing by the Pierce County website. I was hoping to see if there was any background information on any of the candidates posted.
Somewhat surprised, and somewhat not, I found nothing. I then went to Google and didn't have much luck there either. At this point frustration started to set in, and even if the information was out there, my energy had already been exausted from jumping through so many hoops.
This got me thinking about how valuable these elections actually are for our county. If I, being someone not well informed in county politics but willing to research, could not find any useful information - what chance did the average county resident have?
Now I'm sure there is information somewhere that I just simply haven't found yet. Maybe being the young whipper-snapper that I am, I am unrealistically expecting relevant information to be readily available on the internet. My point is, if it is this difficult and takes this much effort just to get an ounce of information about qualifications/experience for a given candidate, we've got a problem.
This means that on top of suppressing votes among the voting population, we are also encouraging some misinformed voters to play Russian roulette with our county leadership. In fact, for some positions a candidate could slam-dunk an election just by being the only candidate to make themselves publicly visible.
Now that my rant is over, I pose the question to you. Have I just been looking in the wrong places, or have I noticed a genuine problem with the county election process?
 by thriceallamerican on 10/22/2008 @ 9:29am | Are you looking for information beyond the voter pamphlet? You should at least be able to access that information via the Pierce County Auditor's website, I think they even have some tools that allow you to enter your personal info and it narrows it down to only those candidates you will be voting for.
(However, a cursory look at the Pierce County web front page doesn't seem to point towards anything obviously election-related, and it's not exactly intuitive to go to the Auditor's page if you don't know offhand that they run elections...I would say that's far from intuitive...) |
 by intacoma on 10/22/2008 @ 9:33am | stepup your myspace game to find sweet drunken photos of candidates |
 by morgan on 10/22/2008 @ 10:07am | You're not alone TacomaGeekery- I tried to find election info on the Pierce County website too and got frustrated after digging around and coming short. What's up with that? It should be a no-brainer. Ironic since the the Auditor is running for County Executive. |
 by Marty on 10/22/2008 @ 2:06pm | Try the Auditors web-site
www.co.pierce.wa.us/pc/abtus/ourorg/aud/ Dozen's of links. And many of the Canidates have websites. |
 by NineInchNachos on 10/22/2008 @ 6:48pm | If i had more time I would devote a whole blog post to this material, but time hangs heavy on my hands.
the most mysterious of mystery candidates... public.elect_jesse_hill.emailplus.org/Ca... |
 by Nick on 10/23/2008 @ 10:34am | Thanks for the link Marty - that's exactly what I was looking for. I thought I had scoured that site for information, but must have missed a link somewhere. As a web developer though, this seems to speak more to the need for an overhaul of Pierce County's website (or at least a more dynamic/current front page). (...ahem... I hear SiteCrafting is quite on-the-ball with that sort of thing, if any county reps happen to be reading.... wink wink) |
by thriceallamerican on 10/23/2008 @ 11:30am | I understand from insiders that it's incredibly difficult to change any sort of site content on the county web sites. I don't mean this in a functionality sense, but in a bureaucratic one. All sorts of information spread out amongst different divisions/departments/etc., and only certain people allowed to maintain content thus leads to something of an organizational maze. As is apt to happen in any large enterprise... So, with absolutely no disrespect to any of the local webdev companies, I don't think the problem is in the backend design of the Pierce County web site.
(That said, whoever is responsible for the front page a month before the election would be well-advised to provide a big impossible-to-miss link to election information.) |
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I'm just a computer geek that has fallen in love with Tacoma.
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