We appreciate Jones\u2019 passion to improve civic engagement and voter turnout in the Alamo City, and we strongly encourage the City Council and City Manager Erik Walsh\u2019s office to take the commission\u2019s recommendations to heart.<\/p>\n
We view these nine recommendations \u2014 including transforming the city\u2019s Communications and Engagement Department to an office of civic participation, creating a \u201csuper center\u201d polling center akin to how the then-AT&T Center was used in the 2020 general election and establishing a civic engagement hub \u2014 as an excellent start to a much-needed civic discussion about improving turnout in local elections.<\/p>\n
Does that mean city leaders should implement every recommendation literally? Not necessarily.<\/p>\n
For example, rather than reconstituting the city\u2019s Communications and Engagement Department, perhaps an office of civic participation could be created within that department, which has other, broader duties. There are also budgetary constraints and political ones. Any effort to improve voter turnout has to be impeccably nonpartisan.<\/p>\n
In a world where every word and action has the potential to be put through a political and social media reality-distortion field, ripe with misinterpretation, this can be easier said than done.<\/p>\n
But no one should argue with the commission\u2019s stated goal of long-term improvement in voter turnout and creating a culture of voter participation in San Antonio. We especially appreciate the recommendations of creating civic participation goals, a one-stop voting hub and a highly visible voting super center to generate awareness and attention.<\/p>\n
Making San Antonio a place where voting is accessible for all, and engagement is a shared civic value, is a noble goal. We\u2019re excited to see where this report may lead our community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We appreciate Jones\u2019 passion to improve civic engagement and voter turnout in the Alamo City, and we strongly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":936253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,293310,21469,7202,40658,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,333],"class_list":["post-936252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-commission-on-voting","tag-mayor-gina-ortiz-jones","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-city-council","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-voting"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116923234326745786","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}