Did you vote today?

Whew...I was an election judge today, and I am exhausted. But I'm still going to take the time to make a short post before I hit the sack.

Voter turnout -- which surprised no one -- was very low in my area. There were no referendums, no high-profile races, like in Chicago -- just local municipal races. But what surprised me a lot more than the low turnout were the people who showed up to vote, but still complained that they didn't know who they were voting for.

Whaaa? How could that even happen? It doesn't take that much time to look up each candidate online and see what comes up. And even if you don't have time for that -- suppose you're really so busy with other things that you can't spend 20 minutes looking up people online -- why are they not getting that information from their local library?

And it occurs to me -- this is a service we are not promoting enough at libraries. Before every election, we should let people sign up to get e-mail alerts or a RSS feed that will alert them the day that the local paper runs an interview with a candidate. And tell them when candidate forums are scheduled (hopefully in the library!). Or when an interview with a candidate is scheduled to go on television. This is the kind of stuff that librarians can easily find out about.

Good night!