In what some town members are saying could happen anywhere, the entire Town of Coma completely forgot to vote in the mayoral election yesterday.
“I’m sure we’re not the first municipality over the history of humankind that has forgotten it was election day and did not vote,” Coma resident, Judge Alan Pezzati said. “Seems like there is an election almost every year or two, so it’s getting harder and harder to keep up with it. Maybe we shouldn’t have them so frequently.”
The error was discovered late last night by Coma Postmaster Steve Simmons, who said he felt like he was forgetting about something all day, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“I knew there was something we were supposed to do yesterday,” Simmons said. “It’s a little embarrasing, but I’m guessing this probably happens more often than more towns like to admit.”
Many reacted to the news by snapping their fingers and shaking their heads, while others closed their eyes and hummed gently for several minutes. Some, however, expressed outrage.
Some citizens blamed the folly on a series of “get out the vote” t-shirts that have been seen around town in recent weeks. The t-shirts were designed to promote the election and encourage people to vote, but because of an error, the shirts may have inadvertantly caused people to forget about the election altogether.
“It probably didn’t help that we had shirts all over town that said ‘forget to vote’ on them,” said Chase Donovan a volunteer in the election office said. “We were trying to make the word ‘don’t’ stand out for emphasis sake, but it ended up being printed the same color as the t-shirt. Lesson learned on that one.”
City officials said a new election day will be scheduled for later in the month. The most significant race is the mayoral election. Polls that came out over the weekend showed challenger Russell Stonewall leading incumbent mayor Dave Anderson. Stonewall said he was disappointed about the town forgetting to vote, but admitted he himself forgot all about it.
“It was an honest mistake,” Stonewall said. “It would have been nice to have it done and over with, and I’d like to think my supporters were just a hair more diligent about things like voting, but I’m confident the end result will be the same.”
Mayor Dave Anderson had not comment, but some sources said the incumbent was relieved and suggested he still had time to come up with a plan that could win him the election.
A new election date is expected to be announced within the next few days.
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