You walk into the voting booth during the midterm elections. You vote for the candidate of your choice for the “important” positions.
But admit it — for every other election on the ballot, you most likely pick an option at random or pick the representative with the coolest name.
But when it comes to the Lafayette Parish School Board representatives, voters have to ensure they are making an informed decision because the Nov. 4 elections, like with the U.S. Senate and 6th Congressional District races, ended in a runoff.
“Coach Don” Gagnard and Mary Morrison will face off on Dec. 6 to represent District 1 in the Lafayette Parish School Board. The power to decide who wins lies with voters within the district, and it is their duty to make a well-informed decision.
Gagnard, who received 36.5 percent of votes the first time around, has 24 years of experience as an educator and a coach. What he lacks, however, is the common sense to refrain from writing offensive comments on social media.
The former wrestling coach made headlines this week when he took down his Facebook page after posting racial and homophobic commentary about hating “faggots, bums, illegal aliens, Veterans mistreatment and most of all: OUR HITLER PRESIDENT …”
When asked by KATC, one of Lafayette’s local television stations, about the comments, Gagnard said, “Coaches aren’t racist.”
“I’ve bailed black people out of jail and bought them trucks,” he said. “If you call me a racist, that’s going to flip back on you. But the faggot thing, yea, you can stick with that.”
After reading his response, there is only one reasonable scenario I can think of as to why the number of people that voted for Gagnard last week did: They made their choice based on a taxing game of eeny, meeny, miny moe.
Otherwise, how could a person like Gagnard have received enough votes for a runoff election?
Morrison, on the other hand, is a student success adviser and continuing education instructor at South Louisiana Community College.
Morrison, who received 44.5 percent of the votes, also served on the Lafayette City-Parish Council and was a candidate for the school board in 2006.
In a questionnaire response to The Daily Advertiser, Morrison said she would work closely with principals and teachers to increase performance ratings, as well as host town hall meetings so the community will have an opportunity to voice its concerns to its representative.
Gagnard had the opportunity to fill out the same questionnaire, but failed to respond by The Daily Advertiser’s deadline.
While electing school board representatives may not receive the same amount of buzz in the media as Senatorial or Congressional elections, I want to believe that, with Louisianians’ evident desire to improve education in the state, they would show enough interest to care who is in charge of approving or rejecting the proposals aimed at accomplishing this goal.
But I guess they don’t.
The Senatorial and 6th Congressional District elections ended in a runoff because both candidates have equal amounts of strong supporters.
I just don’t see why a race between a bigoted, racist former coach/physical education teacher and a student adviser and instructor at a college with previous experience serving in public office could’ve possibly ended with similar results had voters made well-informed decisions.
Morrison had the most votes, but didn’t have enough to secure her seat without the need for another election, and that is crazy. In this case, it should be obvious who is the more qualified candidate.
When you walk into the voting booth on Dec. 6, make sure you’re making educated decisions for all issues on the ballot, not only when picking the more influential positions of public office.
Not knowing who or what you vote for today will have an effect on your life tomorrow.
Jose Bastidas is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Caracas, Venezuela. You can reach him on Twitter @jabastidas.

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