Utah Town Forgot To Hold Municipal Election In November

[Tx4obama]

Utah Town Forgot To Hold Municipal Election In November

The town recorder in Wallsburg, Utah forgot to advertise for and organize municipal elections this year, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday.
The town of fewer than 300 people must wait until 2015 to elect a new mayor and town council members, and in the meantime, Wallsburg must appoint people to the town government, Wasatch County Clerk Brent Titcomb told the Tribune.

"Wallsburg never advertised or prepared for an election this year, so no one signed up," he said. "They're going to have to appoint the current mayor and council for two more years and they'll advertise and have people elected in 2015."
This is not a new problem for the town. Wallsburg officials also forgot to hold elections two years ago, Mark Thomas, director of the Utah elections office, told the Tribune. The appointed seats from last election should have been up for a vote this year.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/utah-town-failed-to-hold-municipal-election-in-november

[JustAnotherGen]

1. I'm sorry

But that makes me laugh! I bet the cops don't have bullets in their guns either!

[shenmue]

2. Der!

[liberal N proud]

3. Forgot?

[Major Hogwash]

4. Where the laws are not enforced, there is no justice.

People can laugh about this, but this is just a form of anarchy, blowing off a democratic way of life, saying that being in a Democratic country doesn't matter since the elections are not being held anyway.

[matt819]

6. That is pretty funny, but you're right

What they did was wrong. Almost certainly a violation of their own local laws and probably of state law. So, joke about it. Fine. But it warrants an investigation and proper legal response.

[Chan790]

5. My paternal grandfather grew up in a town that small...

in rural New England around 1890.

I'm not sure "forgot" covers the frequent reality...the town charter called for 5 selectmen and a raft of lower elected positions, about 12 positions in total. There weren't 12 people in town that would do the job short of having a gun to their head and so after determining that they could not simply not have a sheriff, they did the only thing they could think of...

they drew lots to confirm who the unlucky sods were who were going to be compelled to serve.

I wrote a paper in HS about this when we were reading The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. The parallels were intriguing.

[TeamPooka]

7. It's a fascist power grab. "Forget" to hold election and automatically get reappointed. Twice.

That is an usurpation of democracy and representative government.
At the very least those who "forget" should not be rewarded with a job extension.
Twice.

[Scuba]

8. +1