I like bringing discussions I have off-line, i.e. in real life, onto the Voice for wider disemination. This is the second time someone has offered to put their thoughts down on paper as a Guest Author. The last one was in May here.

Local woman-about-town Lorin Flynn from District 3 has some thoughts on the Five Little Districts described here in 2021.

As the campaigning for the Nov. 3 election is now just about over, I have an observation: An election where two candidates are running against each other for a single position produces much more intense campaigning than if you are asked to vote for several at-large candidates.

I live in Burlingame District 3, and we have two candidates running against each other for a single seat on the City Council. You should see my mailbox! It has been filled with flyers for the past 4 weeks. And most lawns in District 3 are sporting a sign for one candidate or the other. In contrast, the other Burlingame Districts are snoozeville. Residents are either not voting at all because their district councilmember is not up for re-election this time around, or their existing council member is running unopposed. Only District 3 has any kind of contest.

The change from citywide (at-large) elections to district-based City Council elections happened in 2022. If you want to learn more about why that change was made, you can read about it here: https://www.burlingame.org/220/District-Elections.

Thanks, Lorin. I particularly like the lawns that sport signs for both Faber and Wettan–split households! I also miss seeing some local political mailers rather than just the statewide ones. But none of that can remove the feeling that my vote has been suppressed by 80%. One vote every four years instead of five. That and the huge number of unopposed council races (the DJ’s Mark Simon put it at 16 of 29 seats–55%) is frankly undemocratic in the sense that we either can’t vote or don’t have a choice of candidates.