The Procrastinator's Local Election Guide

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. INCOGNI Deal: To get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to incogni.com/CIVICS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Cashmere, outerwear, and boots are up to 60% off at Nordstrom Rack. Save on brands like Ugg, Vince, and Kohan. Join the naughty club for free to unlock exclusive discounts. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month. When you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 0:56Hannah McCarthy?

  So Nick, we love Widows Bay.

• 1:00Nick Capodice?

  Absolutely adore Widows Bay, Hannah.

• 1:04Hannah McCarthy?

  And of course, we are not alone. It is a very popular show. But if 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 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.

• 1:27Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, like every evil under the sun gets in the way of that.

• 1:31Hannah McCarthy?

  Suffice it to say, this place is cursed.

• 1:38Hannah McCarthy?

  And the person who wants Widows 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 is supposed to do.

• 1:50Nick Capodice?

  And his job is nearly impossible.

• 1:54Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, I mean curses, right? But hey, I don't know, Nick. Maybe the reason the mayor is having such a hard time in Widows Bay is because he shouldn't exist at all.

• 2:11Nick Capodice?

  Wait, what do you mean?

• 2:14Hannah McCarthy?

  Widows Bay has a select board. It's on the town hall sign in the show. There's a little plaque thing that says Selectmen's Office.

• 2:22Nick Capodice?

  Did you actually notice that the first time we watched it?

• 2:24Hannah McCarthy?

  Not the first time, the second time. Yeah. And the thing that I know that maybe the writers of Widows Bay did not know, all respect to them, is that New England towns with a select board do not have mayors. So if your town has selectmen and you see mayor on the ballot, you better have some questions.

• 2:45Nick Capodice?

  Did they not fact check this?

• 2:47Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, I think generally in like a horror comedy show about New England, you're not necessarily looking into the structures of local government.

• 2:54Nick Capodice?

  Is that sea hag accurate?

• 3:00Hannah McCarthy?

  This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

• 3:02Nick Capodice?

  I'm Nikka Padij.

• 3:03Hannah McCarthy?

  And this is the Procrastinators Local Election Guide. We are going to give you the basics on the elected jobs 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. And that guide is coming at you right after a quick break.

• 3:28Nick Capodice?

  Haven't you out there ever Googled your own name? Like actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing, there are companies called data brokers whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where Incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over, so your info doesn't just pop right back up.

• 4:10Nick Capodice?

  You set it up once, and they keep working in the background. You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

• 4:35Nick Capodice?

  Holiday season is coming, and I don't think I have to tell you this might be a tough one because things are expensive in the fall of 2026. Everyone I know is looking for ways to make a little extra money, prowling around the side hustle subreddits. But I will say, if you're looking to sell something, to launch a store fast before the holiday rush, Shopify is the one stop shop platform for making a professional looking store without touching a line of code. You can sell anything, and you can sell it anywhere that people shop online. You can have it done in minutes, and you can launch before Black Friday, that time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy.

• 5:19Nick Capodice?

  So if you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/civics to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/civics. Just go to Shopify.com/civics today to hear your first.

• 5:40Hannah McCarthy?

  The older I get, the more I am looking for truly lovable closet staples that I know I will reach for just as often next year as I do right now. I want a closet that doesn't need constant updates or replacements, just high quality clothes that last, especially the kind with tags that say 100%. As in 100% Mongolian cashmere, 100% mulberry silk, 100% organic cotton. Just like the Quince Fisherman Cropped Cardi and I am wearing right this very second. This sweater has kept its shape, color, and softness for years now. I reach for it every single fall, every time I want a warm and elevated look. Quince gives you the quality you expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag.

• 6:25Hannah McCarthy?

  Find the fall pieces you will reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Civics 101. It's a great way to support the show.

• 7:01Hannah McCarthy?

  We're 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 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 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 running for?

• 7:33Nick Capodice?

  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, something that I missed, something I forgot to research.

• 7:44Hannah McCarthy?

  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. 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 local governments in the United States. And when I say local government, Nick, do you know what I'm talking about?

• 8:13Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, I think like your city government, or you know, your municipality, or your town, or something like that, your like local system of government.

• 8:22Hannah McCarthy?

  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 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, 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. Those are the school districts, which provide education, and special districts that provide services like fire protection, electricity, water, even libraries. There are library districts, and the special districts, for one reason or another,

• 9:05Hannah McCarthy?

  they can span multiple towns or even be a small area inside of a town. And then on top of all of that, this is all dependent on where you live.

• 9:16Hannah McCarthy?

  Like Chicago, Illinois, for example, has a very different system than the Yukon Koyakook 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 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 likely to encounter in the voting booth wherever you go.

• 9:51Hannah McCarthy?

  We ready?

• 9:51Nick Capodice?

  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?

• 9:57Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, I can tell you, Nick, that you probably understand more about 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?

• 10:13Nick Capodice?

  The legislative, the executive, and judicial.

• 10:16Hannah McCarthy?

  Very good.

• 10:17Nick Capodice?

  Thank you.

• 10:17Hannah McCarthy?

  And that same basic structure repeats as you shrink 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 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, and judicial jobs, stuff that has to do with the local court system.

• 10:46Nick Capodice?

  All right, before you break it all down, I want to say that there are two important factors 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 of those.

• 11:01Hannah McCarthy?

  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 live in your neighborhood than your presidential candidate or your senatorial candidate. You may already know them. And the stuff they're gonna deal with once 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 partisan, and some are 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 super relevant to the job, believe it or not.

• 11:44Nick Capodice?

  I find that difficult to believe.

• 11:45Hannah McCarthy?

  Well.

• 11:53Hannah McCarthy?

  First things first, Nick, here is what I want everyone to do. Find your sample ballot. You can do that on most state election websites, on vote.org, on ballotpedia.org. If you know what is on your ballot, this episode is gonna be way more helpful to you. And after 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 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 skills to make sure it gets turned into a park?

• 12:34Nick Capodice?

  This is an "I fell in the pit" reference?

• 12:36Hannah McCarthy?

  I fell in the pit. But, you know, or whatever is relevant to you and your neighborhood, your town, et cetera.

• 12:50Hannah McCarthy?

  So let's get into that stuff at the county level.

• 12:53Nick Capodice?

  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. I live there?

• 13:02Hannah McCarthy?

  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 phone number.

• 13:12Nick Capodice?

  Wait, what county did you live in?

• 13:14Hannah McCarthy?

  Norfolk County, Massachusetts.

• 13:16Nick Capodice?

  I was in Merrimack County, New Hampshire.

• 13:18Hannah McCarthy?

  There you go. Where are you now? What's the county now?

• 13:23Nick Capodice?

  Cumberland?

• 13:24Hannah McCarthy?

  Oh, is it?

• 13:25Nick Capodice?

  Maybe.

• 13:26Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, find out later.

• 13:31Hannah McCarthy?

  A state is divided into these geographic areas. Louisiana calls them parishes. Alaska calls them boroughs. Washington DC does not call them anything because it doesn't have them. 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 as the thing in between the state and the municipal government. And county government might handle deeds, taxes, law enforcement, judicial stuff, roads, bridges, parks.

• 14:04Nick Capodice?

  Might handle them.

• 14:05Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, might. Nick, nowhere to me are the wild variations in American governance 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 acts like the executive branch of the county government. This job could be called the county chair, or county board president. In Texas, 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 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,

• 14:50Hannah McCarthy?

  execute policy, propose the budget. On occasion, they might have voting power. They can also have veto power.

• 14:59Nick Capodice?

  Right. All of this so far, sounds a lot like the president or your state governor.

• 15:05Hannah McCarthy?

  Yes, this is the system, more or less, repeating, like I said, as you go down the levels of government. 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 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.

• 15:33Hannah McCarthy?

  Right now, most counties do not actually have that elected executive, that county chair, or county judge, or county board president. They combine the legislature with the executive. Voters elect a small group of people, and those people pass the ordinances, AKA the laws, and they prepare and vote on the budget and lead the government.

• 15:57Nick Capodice?

  So is this like, if the federal congress was also the president, or a state congress was also the governor?

• 16:06Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, I mean, you're combining the roles into this one governing body. Of 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. But as their populations grow, Nick, a lot of counties in the US are voting to separate those powers.

• 16:33Hannah McCarthy?

  Like, in LA County, when it was founded, the population there was under 4,000 people, and today it has nearly 10 million people.

• 16:43Nick Capodice?

  Wow. Most states don't have 10 million people.

• 16:48Hannah McCarthy?

  Forty out of 50 states don't have 10 million people. And up until recently, LA 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 executive and legislative branch, make government more efficient, ideally, and give them one person to praise or blame.

• 17:10Nick Capodice?

  One person. One person gets a whole lot of power. 10 million people? Seriously?

• 17:15Hannah McCarthy?

  10 million people. It's the largest county in the United States. And in a couple of years, the voters of LA County will get 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 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. You're picking the people who make county decisions. So good candidates might include people who are already involved in community groups, for example, people who have leadership experience, who have already improved things in maybe their offices, their businesses, or their neighborhoods.

• 18:01Nick Capodice?

  Okay, that is a lot. But I do want to know about the third county branch.

• 18:07Hannah McCarthy?

  The judicial branch, Nick? Yeah, that's my civics 101 white whale. How the courts are run and by whom is all over the place, especially at the county level. Sometimes counties share courts, sometimes 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 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 violations, or, you know, disputes with your landlord, or misdemeanors, or small claims.

• 18:47Nick Capodice?

  Wait, you said if your county has a county court?

• 18:50Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah. 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 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 arm of the law, the phalanges of the long arm of the law, right?

• 19:15Nick Capodice?

  Phalanges?

• 19:17Hannah McCarthy?

  The fingers. Phalanges.

• 19:18Nick Capodice?

  Phalanges?

• 19:19Hannah McCarthy?

  Yes.

• 19:20Nick Capodice?

  Wow.

• 19:21Hannah McCarthy?

  And 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 might be important to you if you believe your judge should understand the law. So a good candidate might include someone who went 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 they actually know the community that they want to judge?

• 20:01Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, 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, who play necessary roles that we may not think of all that often.

• 20:18Nick Capodice?

  Hannah, are these like the way down the ballot sort of funny sounding positions that most people haven't heard of, like assessor or registrar?

• 20:26Hannah McCarthy?

  Yes, exactly. And these jobs, Nick, may sound or seem arcane 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, 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 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 is mismanaging funds. If the treasurer is good at their job, those funds are likely to be better managed and tracked. So, okay, your turn.

• 21:11Hannah McCarthy?

  What kind of a person would be a good candidate for jobs like this?

• 21:17Nick Capodice?

  So the ideal person for a job like this is someone who enjoys numbers, 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 before.

• 21:31Hannah McCarthy?

  Like an accountant.

• 21:32Nick Capodice?

  Like an accountant. Yes.

• 21:33Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so moving on, counties also have people who keep track of all sorts of important documents. I think that anyone who's ever had to interact with local government will know there's a lot of paperwork.

• 21:47Hannah McCarthy?

  So the elected officials who keep track of these documents, they might do this for the county board. Like, there might be a clerk who manages the agendas and posts schedules and keeps, you know, track of what the government is actually doing. Or a clerk 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 permits and marriage licenses.

• 22:13Nick Capodice?

  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 actually your land. Who wrote this? So for that kind of a job, Hannah, like the ideal candidate to me would be somebody who has worked in an archive, or maybe like a library, or just managed an office, somebody who has experience with a lot of records, and also maybe experienced with a photocopier.

• 22:40Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah.

• 22:41Nick Capodice?

  And you mentioned this could be the person who issues marriage licenses, right?

• 22:45Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Nick Capodice?

  There aren't a whole lot of county clerks out there with recognizable names, but there is one I can think of. Kim Davis, she was a county clerk in Kentucky who defied a court order and refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

• 22:59Hannah McCarthy?

  Okay, I'm actually glad you brought 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 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, does something you don't like, well, that county clerk has to run for reelection eventually.

• 23:31Hannah McCarthy?

  They are accountable to you, the voter. And this accountability at the local level, Nick, when your county clerk or assessor or auditor is 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 them around, or you can make sure they don't get to have that job anymore.

• 23:57Nick Capodice?

  You know, it really is instilling in me the sort of hiring and firing power because on the hyper local level, your vote has so much more impact on who actually wins in these, you know, down ballot elections.

• 24:08Hannah McCarthy?

  Exactly. And then that whole accountability thing, same goes for the people who keep the courts running, like the clerks or the people who prosecute, like county attorneys, or the people who might end up being your lawyer. Did you know, Nick, that in some cases, public defenders are elected positions?

• 24:26Nick Capodice?

  Really?

• 24:26Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah. So, you know, are these people going to make your experience with your court system feel just, right? Will they make it feel organized and fair? Or did you maybe have an unpleasant experience in part because of someone who was elected to work in that court system? We get to elect the people, Nick, who determine the cause of death when it's not clear. That's what a coroner does.

• 24:51Nick Capodice?

  Wait, the coroner is elected?

• 24:53Hannah McCarthy?

  In a lot of cases, yes.

• 24:55Nick Capodice?

  I don't know why I never realized that.

• 24:56Hannah McCarthy?

  And they don't have to have ever seen a dead body.

• 24:59Nick Capodice?

  They don't have to have ever been to law school, seen a dead body, or gone to medical school.

• 25:03Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah. We get to elect the people who patrol and make arrests and maybe put you in county jail, the sheriffs, right? Ultimately, 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.

• 25:20Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, the people you've mentioned so far, I have had to deal with them in my personal life, pretty much all of them, down the list.

• 25:25Hannah McCarthy?

  There you go. So we have done the county tour, but the circle does in fact get even smaller. We're going to get closer to you, the voter, and that is after the break.

• 25:55Nick Capodice?

  Haven't you out there ever Googled your own name, like actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing, there are companies called data brokers, whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over, so your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it

• 26:37Nick Capodice?

  up once, and they keep working in the background. You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

• 27:01Nick Capodice?

  Holiday season is coming, and I don't think I have to tell you this might be a tough one because things are expensive in the fall of 2026. Everyone I know is looking for ways to make a little extra money, prowling around the side hustle subreddits. But I will say, if you're looking to sell something, to launch a store fast before the holiday rush, Shopify is the one-stop-shop platform for making a professional-looking store without touching a line of code. You can sell anything, and you can sell it anywhere that people shop online. You can have it done in minutes, and you can launch before Black Friday, that time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. So if you're ready

• 27:46Nick Capodice?

  to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/civics to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/civics. Just go to Shopify.com/civics today to hear your first.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  Stay cozy and look cool with up to 60% off cold weather gear at Nordstrom Rack. Save on cashmere, outerwear, boots, and more from brands like Ugg, Vince, Kohan, and Hunter. Join the Nordy Club for free to unlock exclusive discounts, shop clearance and new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 28:47Hannah McCarthy?

  We're back. We are giving you the included 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 roles. 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 is different from Alaska boroughs, which are counties, of this fair nation.

• 29:16Nick Capodice?

  So we are now talking about municipal government.

• 29:19Hannah McCarthy?

  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 in on the county, there are municipal versions of the very same jobs we have already talked about.

• 29:35Nick Capodice?

  All right, so a mayor is like a mini-executive.

• 29:38Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, 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 could be an elected executive, or your city council could be in charge of the law or ordinance-making and the government rule itself.

• 29:59Nick Capodice?

  All right, so voting-wise, what does this actually mean for people?

• 30:03Hannah McCarthy?

  It all depends on what kind of city or town government you have. If you're not sure what kind you 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 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 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 isn't interested in helping you, well, maybe they're on the ballot this year.

• 30:49Hannah McCarthy?

  By the way, some mayors are more ceremonial than anything else, and some are more like city managers hired or appointed by city council.

• 30:58Nick Capodice?

  Ain't no rule says a dog can't be mayor.

• 31:01Hannah McCarthy?

  I mean, yeah, that is it.

• 31:04Nick Capodice?

  He's right. Can you put an Air Bud quote in here?

• 31:07Speaker 04

  Bitch won't find anything in there that says a dog can't play. He's right. Ain't no rule said the dog can't play basketball. This is a joke.

• 31:14Nick Capodice?

  Dogs don't play basketball? But no, seriously, Hannah, could there hypothetically be a dog mayor?

• 31:20Hannah McCarthy?

  There are dog mayors. They're just not, they're not part of the official.

• 31:23Nick Capodice?

  Are they on the ballot?

• 31:26Hannah McCarthy?

  You know, sometimes dog mayors have duties, like, they'll show up to a business opening, or they're available for that sort of thing.

• 31:33Nick Capodice?

  Wait, are you, I actually don't know this. Are there actually dog mayors? I did not know this.

• 31:38Hannah McCarthy?

  There are, okay, 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.

• 31:46Nick Capodice?

  Do you ever wonder if the dogs have mayors kind of like in their own?

• 31:49Hannah McCarthy?

  I think about that a lot. Yeah.

• 31:51Nick Capodice?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, Nick, so we've got like the mayor system, we've got the city councillor system, we've got sort of the combination 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. 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 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.

• 32:25Nick Capodice?

  Like Widows Bay.

• 32:26Hannah McCarthy?

  Just like Widows Bay, which, among its many 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 level, except they are doing it for your city or town. And then there's one last piece to the local puzzle, Nick, districts.

• 32:53Nick Capodice?

  Like a school district.

• 32:54Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, just like a school district. There are also things called special districts that take care of super-focused services that are not limited to a city's boundary or a county's boundary. There can be water districts, fire protection districts, mosquito control districts.

• 33:13Nick Capodice?

  Mosquito control.

• 33:14Hannah McCarthy?

  You heard me right. Which I actually really like as an example, because the problem or concern 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 a board of elected officials to handle it. Nick, these special district boards might determine, you know, what you pay for electricity, or how long it takes for a fire engine to get to your street, or whether or not your library is open on Sundays.

• 33:45Nick Capodice?

  Or with school districts, as I well know, you know, how are your kids graded in school? What kinds of activities can they do? Do you have to pay for those activities? What's the school district budget? I think about this one a lot.

• 33:57Hannah McCarthy?

  It is a big one for both parents, and I think a lot of non-parents out there alike. People really care about how education is run. By the way, school districts, those are not the same thing as special districts, according to the Census Bureau. They're their own thing. And they're weird, right?

• 34:16Nick Capodice?

  Weird how?

• 34:17Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, like, you have given me the example 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.

• 34:28Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, yeah. I once 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.

• 34:38Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah.

• 34:39Nick Capodice?

  And while we are talking about school districts, it is my understanding that in the United States, they're pretty segregated racially and economically.

• 34:48Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, they are. And school board members, Nick, are usually deciding the attendance zone boundary. So they are deciding, you 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 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 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 also special because you're voting for people who make very specific

• 35:33Hannah McCarthy?

  decisions that you are just more likely to see and experience, and 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, like, a microloan program to start businesses in your town, that is probably going to be way more tangible for you.

• 36:08Nick Capodice?

  We have said it dozens of times on our show over the last 10 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, 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.

• 36:26Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, I mean, for all of our talk about 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 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 avalanche of proof. I was like, oh, I was right.

• 36:54Nick Capodice?

  You know, so if you're out there having trouble seeing democracy in action, you just might need to zoom in a little bit.

• 37:02Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, it's so much closer than I think a lot of us might realize. So, if you have not voted 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 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 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, including what and

• 37:42Hannah McCarthy?

  who you are voting for, decides your American life. And you can leave that choice to others. Or you can make it yourself.

• 38:12Hannah McCarthy?

  This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with Nick Capodice. Taylor Quimby is our executive producer. Music in this episode comes 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 country, that leaves you a bit nonplussed? You can ask us about it at our website, civics101podcast.org, or by emailing us at [email protected]. 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 Public Radio.

• 39:10Speaker 05

  Behind every success story, there are vulnerable moments and difficult lessons. My new podcast, Confession, pulls back the curtain so that you can hear those lessons directly from tech veterans like Satya Nadella, Dara Khosrowshahi, and more. I'm Ali Partovi, and I've had my share of painful learnings. I once screwed up a $50 million negotiation with Steve Jobs. I had so much shame after losing that deal, it was 10 years before I could share the whole story. Today, I run NEO, a venture fund and mentorship community for startup founders. Follow my new podcast, Confession with Ali Partovi, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 39:53Speaker 06

  Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended Blinds.com.

• 39:59Hannah McCarthy?

  With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at blinds.com experience overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep, and a sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home.

• 40:17Speaker 06

  Shop Black Friday all month long at blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.