Our Overwhelmingly Ignored City Commission Election

The final run-off vote for the open Gainesville City Commission at-large seat was held this past Tuesday.  Melissa and I managed to get out to our precinct late in the afternoon and vote our preferences in this race, which happened to be the only thing on the ballot.  Two Democrats, the more traditionally liberal Helen Warren and the more conservative Annie Orlando with her curious environmentalist/Sierra Club ties, had been running neck-and-neck in the first election.  Who knows who would win this run-off election?  So once again, while continuing to note stories being put out on MSNBC about how different states under Republican administrations were trying to suppress the vote, more than 85% of the eligible Gainesville voters freely decided on their own NOT to participate in this particular election.  As it turns out, Warren won in a squeaker by just a little more than a hundred votes.  One of my acquaintances, who has a passionately hard-right orientation to her political opinions and has all politicians starkly divided between the "good guys" and the "bad guys", was infuriated that Orlando could lose to Warren.  For myself, I could have accepted either result; my main gripe is about the overwhelming "vote" among our citizens to abdicate their hard-fought-for right and ignore the election.  We had our brave young men and women sent over as soldiers to Iraq and put their lives on the line, in part to help bring democracy to that suffering land...and those Iraqis bravely responded on a massive scale to vote, even in the face of death threats.  But look at how casually we take voting for granted over here. We have compulsory jury duty...I don't see 85% of those summoned failing to respond to their summons.  How is voting essentially different from jury duty?.  Aren't both crucial civic duties for a democratic republic that is ruled by law? I think we've got our priorities confused if we think of mandating people to buy health insurance policies from private companies before mandating them to get off their butts and go vote...