Virtual reality vs. actual geography

There are less than two weeks before filing for the 2024 election begins in Douglas County with four school board and three county commission seats on the ballot, in addition to scores of town and district offices.

Elections are one place where geography is critical, and with a score of separate elected bodies with taxing authority, your political affiliation and where you live determines who is on your ballot.

While both the school board and commission are elected at large, who gets to run for what seat is determined by where they call home.

Because half of the voters in Douglas County are registered Republican, partisan races like county commissioner are essentially determined in the primary.

But most of the folks who sign up to be on the ballot will be seeking nonpartisan office this year, including school board.

And that’s where geography comes in. No clearer example of that exists than the difference between the Town of Minden and the postal designation of Minden. There are more people with a Minden address living outside of the town boundaries than in the Douglas County Seat.

Because of the overwhelming influence of social media across the country, the local is often overwhelmed by the rest of the world.

It doesn’t help that there are a dozen Douglas Counties across the United States. Last week we heard that $1.4 million for Kahle Drive at Stateline was mistakenly sent to Douglas County, Colo. During the 2022 election, school board candidates posted materials from Douglas County, Ga.

Here’s where we should plug The Record-Courier’s focus on what happens in this place, but even that is complicated by the fact there’s a larger Record-Courier in Ohio. At least Ohio doesn’t have a Douglas County, too.

We’ve often envisioned the scenario where residents rely on reports about an oncoming wildfire online instead of looking out a window.

There’s a story out of Hong Kong where a finance worker was tricked by an AI-generated conference call to transfer $25.6 million to scammers. Is the story true? We don’t know how we would even verify it?

So what hope do the rest of us have when facing the daunting task of separating the wheat from the chaff online?

Scuttlebutt is a word sailors have used for centuries to describe the rumor mill onboard ship. “Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you read,” was the response. With social media the difference between what you hear and read is blurred. To cut through it, pay attention to dates and geography. Search a topic you see in a post and look at the results. And maybe, occasionally, look out the window.