OPINION: 2023 is an election year, too. Here are the races to watch.
ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION: POLITICS
By Patricia Murphy | Oct 18, 2023
The House speaker drama in Washington may be getting the headlines, but voters in Georgia are already going to the polls for elections happening here on Nov. 7.
Yes, this November. Even the biggest politicos among us can get tripped up by off-year elections like the ones happening now. But make no mistake that local races can have a bigger impact on your day-to-day life than a House speaker race ever will. That’s why I always encourage people to, “Think globally, vote locally.”
One city that won’t be voting at all is Gainesville, where so few candidates filed to run for the upcoming city council and school board races that the election was officially canceled since the races were already decided.
Gainesville Mayor Sam Couvillon, who was reelected in 2022, said the lack of candidates is distressing. “If you follow social media, people always like to hate the mayor and council members and say, ‘We need to vote them out.’ And then when we had an option for three people to be opposed, nobody ran against them.”
Couvillion said he always encourages people to run for office. “I say there’s no shame in losing, there’s only shame in not putting yourself out there.”
State Rep. Teri Anulewicz, D-Smyrna, said she noticed multiple local offices in Cobb County go unchallenged as well, including in Smyrna. “I do worry that it’s a harbinger of just a general sense of disengagement in the electoral process,” she said.
You can check your polling location and voter registration status on your MyVoter page at the Secretary of State’s office, and come back to AJC.com, where we’ll have more information about individual candidates closer to the election.
Until then, remember that your mayor, city council, and other local leaders will be making crucial decisions for your family and your community, whether we ever have a Speaker of the House in America again or not.