Have you ever stared blankly at "City Clerk" on your ballot and picked a candidate at random? Feverishly searched "what is a county assessor" from your phone in the voting booth? Are you on your way to the polls RIGHT NOW with no real plan for who to vote for?
This is the guide for you! We cover local elected offices: what they are, why they matter and how you can prepare for your moment in the voting booth. Even if it's very last minute.
Transcript
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:07] So, Nick, we love [00:00:10] widow's Bay.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:10] Absolutely adore widow's Bay.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:15] And of course, we are not alone. It is a very popular show. But if [00:00:20] you are uninitiated or if you have not yet finished it, I am not going to spoil it for you. The basic idea is that it is a horror comedy set in this fictional [00:00:30] town in New England that is not Nantucket, not Martha's Vineyard, but wants to be. Except some stuff gets in the way of that.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:38] Yeah, like every evil under [00:00:40] the sun gets in the way of that.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:43] Suffice it to say, this place is cursed. And the person [00:00:50] who wants widow's Bay to be like Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard is the mayor who is trying to get tourists to come to the island, while also doing all of the other stuff that a mayor [00:01:00] is supposed to do.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:01] And his job is nearly impossible.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:04] Well, I mean curses, right? Uh, but, hey, I don't know, Nick. Maybe the reason [00:01:10] the mayor is having such a hard time in widows Bay is because he shouldn't exist at all.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:22] Wait, [00:01:20] what do you mean?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:25] Widows Bay has a select board. It's on the town hall sign in the show. [00:01:30] There's a little plaque thing that says Selectmen's office.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:33] Did you actually notice that the first time we watched it?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:35] Not the first time. The second time? Yeah. And the thing that I know that maybe [00:01:40] the writers of widows Bay did not know, uh, all respect to them is that New England towns with a select board do not have mayors. [00:01:50] So if your town has selectmen and you see mayor on the ballot, you better have some questions.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:56] Did they not fact check this?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:58] Well, I think generally in like a horror comedy [00:02:00] show about New England, you're not necessarily looking into the structures of local government.
Nick Capodice: [00:02:05] Is that sea hag accurate?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:11] This [00:02:10] is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: [00:02:13] I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:14] And this is the procrastinators local election guide. We are going to give you the basics on the elected jobs [00:02:20] that don't tend to get a lot of hype in the news, but are super important to your life, help you understand why they're important, and how you can figure out who to vote for. [00:02:30] And that guide is coming at you right after a quick break.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:50] We're [00:02:50] back. This is your guide to some of the various elected positions you might see on the ballot this year, where people are running for positions in local government. Not [00:03:00] federal, not even state local. This guide is as much for me as it is for you, because I recently moved to Maine and I want to know what I'm doing when [00:03:10] I vote. So let me ask you this, Nick. When you get your ballot on Election Day, do you know who all of those people are and what they are actually [00:03:20] running for?
Nick Capodice: [00:03:21] I don't want to put my job in jeopardy, Hannah, but I don't. I always bring my phone in and I always prepare in advance. But there's always something, [00:03:30] something that I missed, something I forgot to research.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:32] Yeah, I have lived and voted in four different states in my life. Maine is going to make it five. And every new place, there's something different. [00:03:40] Some job I've never heard of, some job I have heard of a million times but don't actually understand. The Census Bureau tells us that as of 2025, there were 91,438 [00:03:50] local governments in the United States. And when I say local government, Nick, do you know what I'm talking about?
Nick Capodice: [00:04:02] Yeah. [00:04:00] I think like your city government or, you know, your municipality or your town or something like that, you're like local system [00:04:10] of government.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:11] Yeah. So government in the United States, it has layers or you can think of them as like concentric circles. Sometimes it's more of a Venn diagram. So if the federal government [00:04:20] is the big circle inside that you have the state government, and then it starts to get local. Inside the state circle is county government. [00:04:30] And inside that is municipal like city or town or village government. And then you've got these wacky circles could be more like blobs. [00:04:40] Those are the school districts which provide education and special districts that provide services like fire protection, electricity, water, even libraries. There are library [00:04:50] districts in the special districts for one reason or another, they can span multiple towns, or even be a small area inside of a town. And then on top of all of that, [00:05:00] this is all dependent on where you live. Like Chicago, Illinois, for example, has a very different system than the Yukon-Koyukuk [00:05:10] census area in Alaska. State, city, town, and county. Websites can help you better understand what kind of system you are living in. But I can help you better understand [00:05:20] what the heck you are voting for. Because even though the names of specific jobs can be different from place to place, there are some themes, if you will, that you are [00:05:30] likely to encounter in the voting booth wherever you go. Are [00:05:40] we ready?
Nick Capodice: [00:05:40] I'm literally going to vote as soon as we finish this, so I have never been more ready. So where do you want to start?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:46] Well, I can tell you, Nick, that you probably understand more about [00:05:50] your local government than you think you do. Listeners to this show, for example, are likely familiar with the three branches of the federal government, which are. [00:06:00]
Nick Capodice: [00:06:01] The legislative, the executive and judicial.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:04] Very good.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:05] Thank you.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:06] And that same basic structure repeats as you shrink [00:06:10] down to state government. You know, we have the executive, the governor, then the legislative state Congress and the judicial, the state courts. Shrink that down again, take [00:06:20] a look at local government, and you're gonna see it basically repeat jobs that have to do with executive decision making, legislative positions with people who make rules and policy [00:06:30] and judicial jobs, stuff that has to do with the local court system.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:35] All right, before you break it all down, I want to say that there are two important factors [00:06:40] in voting, Hannah. So there's knowing what a job is and then knowing who a person, a candidate is and being an informed voter takes both [00:06:50] of those.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:50] It does. I am glad you brought this up. And what I think is really cool about voting at the local level is that the person you're voting for is way more likely to [00:07:00] live in your neighborhood than your presidential candidate or your senatorial candidate. You may already know them and the stuff they're going to deal with once [00:07:10] they're elected is way more specific to you than even state and federal stuff is likely to be. And some of these elections are partizan and some are [00:07:20] not. So you can't necessarily rely on Republican versus Democrat versus independent to help you make your decision. And sometimes party affiliation isn't [00:07:30] super relevant to the job, believe it or not.
Nick Capodice: [00:07:32] I find that difficult to believe.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:34] Well. First [00:07:40] things first, Nick. Here is what I want everyone to do. Find your sample ballot. You can do that on most state [00:07:50] election websites on vote.org. On ballotpedia.org. If you know what is on your ballot, this episode is going to be way more helpful to you. And after [00:08:00] you are done listening to this, check out those local candidates, their website, their Facebook page, even their LinkedIn page, or think about what you know about them [00:08:10] already and ask yourself or if you can ask them, does this person care about that giant empty pit in my neighborhood as much as I do? And do they have the [00:08:20] skills to make sure it gets turned into a park?
Nick Capodice: [00:08:23] This is an I fell in the pit reference.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:25] I fell in the pit.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:27] But you know, or whatever is relevant to you [00:08:30] and your neighborhood, your town, etc.. So let's get [00:08:40] into that stuff at the county level.
Nick Capodice: [00:08:42] I just want to add here, the first time I went to fill out governmental documents, it was like, what county do you live in? And I was like, I have no idea. [00:08:50] I live there.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:50] I'm still thinking of myself as living in the county I grew up in in Massachusetts, because that's like the first. It's like learning your, you know, home [00:09:00] phone number.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:01] Wait, what county did you live in?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:02] Norfolk County, Massachusetts.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:05] I was in Merrimack County, New Hampshire.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:07] There you go. Where are you now? What's the county [00:09:10] now?
Nick Capodice: [00:09:11] Uh, Cumberland.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:13] Oh. Is it.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:14] Maybe.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:14] Well, I'll find out later. A [00:09:20] state is divided into these geographic areas. Louisiana calls them parishes. Alaska calls them boroughs. Washington, D.C. does not call them anything because it doesn't have them. [00:09:30] But most of these places call these areas counties. And not all counties have county governments. But generally, we can think of a county government [00:09:40] as the thing in between the state and the municipal government, and county government might handle deeds, taxes, law enforcement, judicial stuff, [00:09:50] roads, bridges, parks.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:52] Might handle.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:53] Them. Yeah. Might. Uh, Nick. Nowhere to me are the wild variations in American governance [00:10:00] on better display than at the local level. But there are some general trends. And on a lot of ballots around the country, you might see someone running for a job that [00:10:10] acts like the executive branch of the county government. This job could be called the county chair or county board president in Texas. [00:10:20] It can be called the county judge. And this is not a court judge, mind you. It's just the title of the person in charge in Shelby County, Tennessee. They [00:10:30] call this the county mayor. Now, regardless of the name, what they usually do is lead the county's departments, oversee people, hire and fire department heads, execute policy, [00:10:40] propose the budget. On occasion, they might have voting power. They can also have veto power.
Nick Capodice: [00:10:48] All of this so far sounds [00:10:50] a lot like the president or your state governor.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:54] Yes, this is the system more or less repeating. Like I said, as you go down the levels of government [00:11:00] and then you will have the legislative branch. This can be called the County Board of Supervisors or Commissioners or council in Kentucky. Nick. It's called [00:11:10] the fiscal court in Louisiana. It's called the police jury. All different names for the same basic thing. And here's the thing, Nick. [00:11:20] Right now, most counties do not actually have that elected executive, that county chair or county judge or county board [00:11:30] president. They combine the legislature with the executive. Voters elect a small group of people, and those people pass the [00:11:40] ordinances, aka the laws, and they prepare and vote on the budget and lead the government.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:46] So is this like if the Federal Congress was also [00:11:50] the president or a state Congress was also the governor?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:55] Yeah. I mean, you're you're combining the roles into this one governing body. Of [00:12:00] course, counties are way smaller than the country or a state, and it's easier to run something by committee if the thing you're running is comparatively small. [00:12:10] But as their populations grow, Nick, a lot of counties in the U.S. are voting to separate those powers. Like [00:12:20] in L.A. County, when it was founded, the population there was under 4000 people. And today it has nearly [00:12:30] 10 million people.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:31] Wow. Um, most states don't have 10 million people.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:36] 40 out of 50 states don't have 10 million people. [00:12:40] And up until recently, L.A. County had a group of people making all of their laws and running their government until the voters of LA County decided they wanted to split the [00:12:50] executive and legislative branch, make government more efficient ideally, and give them one person to praise or blame one person.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:59] One person [00:13:00] gets a whole lot of power. 10 million people.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:03] Seriously, 10 million people. It's the largest county in the United States. And in a couple of years, the voters of L.A. County will get [00:13:10] to decide who that one executive is. So bringing it back to the voter, Nick, the thing you have to know is this when you go into the voting booth, you [00:13:20] might get to vote for an executive and a legislature or a legislature that does both. It all depends on how your county divides that power or doesn't. [00:13:30] You're picking the people who make county decisions. So good candidates might include people who are already involved in community groups, for [00:13:40] example, people who have leadership experience, who have already improved things in maybe their offices, their businesses, or their neighborhoods.
Nick Capodice: [00:13:50] Okay, [00:13:50] that is a lot. But I do want to know about the third county branch.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:56] The judicial branch. Nick. Yeah, that's my Civics 101 white whale. Um, [00:14:00] how the courts are run and by whom is all over the place, especially at the county level. Sometimes counties share courts, sometimes [00:14:10] they have their own, sometimes they share judicial power with the states. Sometimes the state has the final say. Even what judges do, like what kind of cases [00:14:20] they take and make decisions about varies from county to county. But if you do have county courts, those judges could be dealing with traffic [00:14:30] violations or, you know, disputes with your landlord or misdemeanors or small claims.
Nick Capodice: [00:14:36] Wait, you said if your county has a county court.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:39] Yeah. [00:14:40] Some states don't even do the court thing along county lines. They might use like a district court instead. And in some states, you don't even get to vote [00:14:50] for your local judges. They're appointed. But if you do see a local court judge on the ballot, you are getting the chance to pick the long [00:15:00] arm of the law. The phalanges of the long arm of the law.
Nick Capodice: [00:15:04] Phalanges.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:05] The fingers. Phalanges.
Nick Capodice: [00:15:07] Phalanges.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:08] Yes.
Nick Capodice: [00:15:09] Wow.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:10] And [00:15:10] be warned, not all local judges are required to have a law degree. Like to run for the office. So getting to know these candidates [00:15:20] might be important to you if you believe your judge should understand the law. So a good candidate might include someone who went [00:15:30] to law school or worked as a court clerk or a lawyer if they have been a judge before. Do they have a history of being fair, being respectful? Do [00:15:40] they actually know the community that they want to judge. All right. [00:15:50] Moving on. Within these county branches, Nick, there are lots and lots of elected positions. These are the people who keep the executive and legislative and judicial systems running, [00:16:00] who play necessary roles that we may not think of all that often.
Nick Capodice: [00:16:07] Hannah, are these like the way down the ballot, sort [00:16:10] of funny sounding positions that most people haven't heard of, like assessor or registrar?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:15] Yes, exactly. And these jobs, Nick, may sound or seem arcane [00:16:20] or even boring, but you are still being asked to vote for them. You are still getting a say here. So here is the deal. When it comes to running the government, [00:16:30] you need someone to figure out property values. For example, that is the county assessor. If they are bad at their job. Your property taxes. I don't [00:16:40] know, maybe they turn out to not be what they should be. Another example if the county auditor is good at their job, they will be able to figure out if the government [00:16:50] is mismanaging funds. If the treasurer is good at their job, those funds are likely to be better managed and tracked. So okay. Your [00:17:00] turn. What kind of a person would be a good candidate for jobs like this?
Nick Capodice: [00:17:06] So the ideal person for a job like this is someone who enjoys numbers, [00:17:10] someone who doesn't mind looking at the minutia of sort of day to day economics and operations, maybe somebody who's run a small business, right? Or somebody who has, you know, done a job similar to that [00:17:20] before.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:20] Like an accountant.
Nick Capodice: [00:17:21] Like an accountant.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So moving on, counties also have people who keep track of all sorts of important documents. I think that anyone [00:17:30] who's ever had to interact with local government will know there's a lot of paperwork. So the elected officials who keep track of these documents. They [00:17:40] might do this for the county board. Like there might be a clerk who manages the agendas and post schedules and keeps track of what the government is actually doing. Or a clerk [00:17:50] who does this for you, like the resident of the town, keeping track of all kinds of county records birth, death, elections, land, even issuing [00:18:00] permits and marriage licenses.
Nick Capodice: [00:18:02] Gosh, there's this thing in homeownership where you have to like, see what the actual acreage of your land is. And there's these old posts from the 1700s and you're like, that's [00:18:10] actually your land. You're like, who wrote this? Um, so for that kind of a job, Hannah, like the ideal candidate to me would be somebody who has worked in [00:18:20] an archive or maybe like a library or just managed an office, somebody who has experience with a lot of records and also maybe experience with a photocopier.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:29] Yeah.
Nick Capodice: [00:18:30] And [00:18:30] you mentioned this could be the person who issues marriage licenses, right? Yeah. There aren't a whole lot of county clerks out there with recognizable names, but there is one I can think of. Kim [00:18:40] Davis. She was a county clerk in Kentucky who defied a court order and refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:48] Okay. I'm actually glad you brought [00:18:50] this story up, because the fact that we elect these administrative positions at all, like the fact that we the people are the hiring committee for our [00:19:00] county government, I found myself wondering initially why the voters are put in charge of that stuff. But if your county clerk, which, as you said, Kim Davis was [00:19:10] does something you don't like, well, that county clerk has to run for reelection eventually. They [00:19:20] are accountable to you, the voter. And this accountability at the local level, when your county clerk or assessor or auditor is [00:19:30] kind and helpful, respectful and law abiding, you then get to decide if they get to keep their job, if they run again, right? You can keep [00:19:40] them around, or you can make sure they don't get to have that job anymore.
Nick Capodice: [00:19:45] You know, it really is instilling in me the sort of hiring and firing power because on [00:19:50] the hyper local level, your vote has so much more impact on who actually wins in these, you know, down ballot elections.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:56] Exactly. And then that whole accountability thing. [00:20:00] Same goes for the people who keep the courts running, like the clerks or the people who prosecute the county attorneys or the people who might end up being your lawyer. Did [00:20:10] you know, Nick, that in some cases, public defenders are elected positions? Really? Yeah. So, you know, are these people going to make your experience with your court system [00:20:20] feel just right? Will they make it feel organized and fair, or did you maybe have an unpleasant experience, in part [00:20:30] because of someone who was elected to work in that court system? We get to elect the people who determine the cause of death when it's not clear. That's what a coroner [00:20:40] does.
Nick Capodice: [00:20:40] Wait. The coroner is elected.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:42] In a lot of cases, yes.
Nick Capodice: [00:20:44] I don't know why.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:45] And they don't have to have ever seen.
Nick Capodice: [00:20:47] They don't have.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:47] To have ever.
Nick Capodice: [00:20:48] Been to.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:49] Law school.
Nick Capodice: [00:20:49] Seeing a dead [00:20:50] body or gone to medical school.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:51] Yeah. We get to elect the people who patrol and make arrests and maybe put you in county jail. The sheriffs. Right. Ultimately, [00:21:00] the people who are in these roles that we think of as smaller, the administrative roles tend to be the people you are most likely to deal with.
Nick Capodice: [00:21:08] Yeah. The people you've mentioned [00:21:10] so far. I have had to deal with them in my personal life. Pretty much all of them. Down the.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:14] List. There you go. So we have done the county tour, but the circle does in fact get even [00:21:20] smaller. We're gonna get closer to you, the voter. And that is after the break. We're [00:21:50] back. We are giving you the included [00:22:00] but not limited to version of your guide to local elections. Who are these people and what do they do? And before the break, Nick, we talked about elected county rolls. [00:22:10] Again, not the exhaustive list, but the jobs you are most likely to see on your ballot. And now we are on to the cities, towns, villages, and boroughs that [00:22:20] is different from Alaska boroughs, which are counties of this fair nation.
Nick Capodice: [00:22:27] So we are now talking about municipal [00:22:30] government.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:30] Exactly in the concentric circles of government, from federal to state to county. We are zooming in on the stuff closest to you. And just like we saw when we zoomed [00:22:40] in on the county, there are municipal versions of the very same jobs we have already talked about.
Nick Capodice: [00:22:46] All right. So a mayor is like a mini executive.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:49] Yeah. [00:22:50] An executive at a level even closer to you. And cities and towns have a similar thing going on when it comes to legislative versus executive. So your mayor [00:23:00] could be an elected executive or your city council could be in charge of the law or ordinance making and the government rule itself. [00:23:10]
Nick Capodice: [00:23:10] All right. So voting wise, what does this actually mean for people?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:14] It all depends on what kind of city or town government you have. If you're not sure what kind you [00:23:20] have, and like most people I think are not sure what kind of city or town government they have. Go to your city's website, check out you know, the About Us [00:23:30] page or the government page, you should be able to find a quick explanation of what kind of place you live in. If the city councilors are in charge, that website [00:23:40] should tell you if the mayor runs the government, that should be where you find out. If you can't figure it out, can't find it, call town hall. And if the clerk [00:23:50] isn't interested in helping you, well, maybe they're on the ballot this year. By [00:24:00] the way, some mayors are more ceremonial than anything else, and some are more like city managers hired or appointed by city council.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:10] Ain't [00:24:10] no rules. Says a dog can't be mayor.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:13] I mean, yeah, that is.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:14] He's.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:15] Right.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:16] Can you put an Air Bud quote in here.
Air Bud: [00:24:18] That you won't find anything in there that [00:24:20] says a dog can't play?
Air Bud: [00:24:21] He's right. Ain't no rules that the dog can't play basketball. This is a joke. Dogs don't play basketball.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:28] But no, seriously, though, Hannah, could there hypothetically [00:24:30] be a dog mayor?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:31] There are dog mayors. They're just not. They're not part of the official election, although they're.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:36] On.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:36] The ballot. You know, sometimes dog mayors have duties. Like they'll [00:24:40] show up to a business opening or they're available for that sort of thing.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:44] Wait, wait, are you I actually don't know this. Are there actually dog mayors? I did not know this.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:48] There are okay. [00:24:50] There are like quote unquote. I mean, there are elections. There are elections for dog mayors, but it's not going to be on the official ballot.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:57] Do you ever wonder if the dogs have mayors kind of like in [00:25:00] their own.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:00] I think about that a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:03] All right. Nick so we've got like the mayor system. We've got the city councilor system. We've got sort of the combination [00:25:10] of the two. But some municipalities have totally different systems. You could have commissioners. This is a small group of people who kind of act like a city council. [00:25:20] This is not a super common form of government. It's very old. You could have one of the forms of town meeting government where people directly vote for stuff, or [00:25:30] they vote for a bunch of people who will vote on their behalf. And then there's a select board who makes sure stuff gets done.
Nick Capodice: [00:25:36] Like widows Bay.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:37] Just like widows Bay, which among its many [00:25:40] other mysteries, also has an elected executive mayor. And then like I said, there are people at the super local level doing the same basic stuff that happens at the county [00:25:50] level, except they are doing it for your city or town. And then there's one last piece to the local puzzle, Nick districts.
Nick Capodice: [00:26:04] Like [00:26:00] a school district.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:05] Yeah, just like a school district. There are also things called special districts that take [00:26:10] care of super focused services that are not limited to a city's boundary or county's boundary. There can be water districts, fire [00:26:20] protection districts, mosquito control districts, mosquito control. You heard me right. Which I actually really like as an example, because the problem or concern [00:26:30] is right there in the name. There's some area within a state or within a town that needs help with mosquitoes. So they made a special district and created [00:26:40] a board of elected officials to handle it. Nick, these special district boards might determine what you pay for electricity, or how long it [00:26:50] takes for a fire engine to get to your street, or whether or not your library is open on Sundays.
Nick Capodice: [00:26:56] Or with school districts, as I well know, you know. Uh, how are your kids [00:27:00] graded in school? What kinds of activities can they do? Do you have to pay for those activities? Uh, what's the school district budget? I think about this one a lot.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:09] It is a big [00:27:10] one for both parents, and I think a lot of non-parents out there are like, people really care about how education is run. By the way, school districts, those are not the same [00:27:20] thing as special districts, according to the Census Bureau. Their own thing. And they're weird, right?
Nick Capodice: [00:27:27] Weird how?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:28] Well, like you have given me the example [00:27:30] of the fact that your kids went to a school that was in a different district than the houses across the street from that school.
Nick Capodice: [00:27:39] Yeah, yeah. I once [00:27:40] lived somewhere where you could stand outside in your yard and watch kids playing at school, and you could not be allowed to send your kids to that school because it was in a different district.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:49] Yeah. [00:27:50]
Nick Capodice: [00:27:50] And while we are talking about school districts, it is my understanding that in the United States they're pretty segregated racially and economically.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:59] Yeah they are. [00:28:00] And school board members are usually deciding the attendance zone boundary. So they are deciding, you [00:28:10] know, based on your address, whether you get to go to one school or another or they are hiring the people who make those decisions. And you know, to your point, a lot of what kids get [00:28:20] to learn, where the funds go, all of that, you, the voter, are often in charge of picking who gets to make those decisions. And [00:28:30] you know, Nick, at the beginning of this episode, I said that local elections are special because you're more likely to know and interact with the person you're voting for. They're [00:28:40] also special because you're voting for people who make very specific decisions that you are just more likely to see and experience and [00:28:50] to understand, for that matter. A federal candidate might campaign on, you know, supporting local business, but a local candidate who has a plan for creating [00:29:00] like a micro loan program to start businesses in your town, that is probably going to be way more tangible for you.
Nick Capodice: [00:29:19] We [00:29:10] have said it dozens [00:29:20] of times on our show over the last ten years about how a stop sign at the end of your block is, you know, more important than who the president is. But this is really making that abundantly clear. Like, [00:29:30] again, I have interacted with all of these positions that we have just talked about. I was not always aware that I could vote for them, however.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:37] Mhm.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:38] Yeah. I mean, for all of our talk about [00:29:40] the importance of local power and local participation, you know, the role voters play in the place where they specifically live and, you know, the stuff that happens to and around [00:29:50] them on a daily basis, to your point, for all of those years of insisting that it is so true, that that's so important, researching this episode, Nick still hit me like this [00:30:00] avalanche of proof. I was like, oh, I was right.
Nick Capodice: [00:30:05] You know? Uh, so if you're out there having trouble seeing democracy in action, [00:30:10] you just might need to zoom in a little bit.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:30:13] Yeah. It's so much closer than I think a lot of us might realize. So if you have not voted [00:30:20] yet, remember, you can be familiar with your ballot before you ever get to your polling place. Look up that sample ballot, look up the candidates, and [00:30:30] if you want, you can do what I do. You can make a list of your voting choices, like the candidates you're going to vote for, for each office before you head out to vote. Bring that list into [00:30:40] the booth. And while I didn't cover every single local office, people will have the chance to vote for this year. I do hope one thing is clear voting, [00:30:50] including what and who you are voting for, decides your American life. And you can leave [00:31:00] that choice to others, or you can make it yourself.
[00:31:23] This [00:31:20] episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy with Nick Capodice. Taylor Quimby is our executive producer. Music in this episode comes [00:31:30] from Epidemic Sound. Do you feel like you could use more guidance when it comes to participating in your American democracy? Is there something going on in your town, your state, this [00:31:40] country that leaves you a bit nonplused? You can ask us about it at our website, civics101podcast.org, or by emailing us at Civics 101@npr.org. [00:31:50] Answering your questions and finding the right tools to make a difference is what we are here for. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR New Hampshire [00:32:00] Public Radio.