> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.readtangle.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How is this my call? - URL: https://www.readtangle.com/otherposts/how-is-this-my-call/ - Published: 2026-10-04T01:27:04.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-04T01:27:04.000Z - Author: Tangle Staff - Tags: reader-essay, #hide *By Stout Cortez* --- Growing up in the Pittsburgh area in the nineties, a child was just expected to know certain things by the time he or she came of voting age. Obviously, you pick up all the driving stuff. Avoid the highways during rush hour, but if and when you do have to take the parkway between 7AM and 7PM, you have to expect everyone to slow down for tunnels. It is known that Pittsburghers are afraid of tunnels and have to ease their paces to get a good look at the maw they’re about to pilot their crafts through before they do so. No one personally knows a driver afflicted by the deceleration epidemic, or certainly no one admits to this under interrogation, but somehow tunnelphobia is just the Pittsburgh way. Also, when you’re first up at a red light and you want to go left, you gotta just shoot it as soon as the light turns (this is called [the Pittsburgh left](https://www.wesanews.org/development-transportation/2020-07-28/how-the-pittsburgh-left-became-embedded-in-city-driving?ref=readtangle.com), and it makes [Pittsburgh athletes very uncomfortable](https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2016/12/17/listen-to-a-steeler-le-veon-bell-gets-it-right-on-the-pittsburgh-left/stories/201612170077?ref=readtangle.com)). Speaking of Pittsburgh athletes, you should be able to recite the starting D-line from the 2005 Super Bowl team by memory, and to your dying day you better be prepared to rattle off the names ‘Hampton, Smith, and von Oelhoffen’ at a moment’s notice. Not a Steeler fan? Yes you are. You are, at least a little bit, and you need to do your civic duty and respect the Steeler defense. If you were a ’90s kid in Allegheny County, then this was all vital information you had to have before you could punch your first ballot in a federal, state, or county election. And one of the most important names to know before you pulled that weird blue-patterned curtain behind you in the voting booth in the local gym was “Cyril Wecht.” Cyril Wecht was the Allegheny County coroner from 1996 to 2006\. It’s hard to say how you knew about him growing up, but you knew the name. *Cyril Wecht*. It has a certain Rust Belt poetry to it. You *knew* you’d heard your parents say the name at various points for one reason or another. Until he finally came through the morgue via the visitors’ entrance (Wecht died in 2024 at the ripe old age of 94), the former coroner was a local political mainstay. But… *Why?* This question was in the back of my mind the first time I voted, and it never really left. *Why do I know who the coroner is?* *In fact, why am I even voting for the coroner?* I kept those “why”s to myself at the time. Eventually I found out the answer to the first one; Wecht was somewhat of a special case. He served nonconsecutive multi-term spans as the coroner, starting with the entire 1970s. He then became a county commissioner as a Democrat, while also chairing the county’s chapter of the Democratic Party, after leaving the coroner post amid scandal (he *allegedly* performed autopsies for other counties in Allegheny County and pocketed cash for doing so, and he was sued in civil court for *allegedly* using county resources to benefit his own private enterprises). Then, like any good local politician with a little buzz on his name and one hand firmly in the cookie jar, he ran for Senate. And, in 1982, he failed. That would have ended the careers of most country coroners, but not Cyril Wecht. He *loved* the spotlight. Wecht was dramatic, borderline flamboyant, in a way that heavily conflicts with a person whose job puts them in close contact with people without pulses — that is, before the CSI shows took off. And, actually, the whole CSI crime show concept was [partially inspired](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/love-csi-ncis-you-can-thank-guy-flna1c9442107?ref=readtangle.com) by Wecht himself. He freely gave quotes to the local papers, he wrote about the JFK assassination, he appeared on Geraldo Rivera; he found a way to remain a known figure up until his glorious comeback to county elected office in 1995. I didn’t know any of that when I participated in my first county election. To be honest, as an 18-year-old, I barely knew what a coroner was. All I knew was that I recognized the name ‘Cyril Wecht.’ I associated the name with the word ‘coroner,’ and that’s why I voted for him. If that sounds dumb, that’s because it’s dumb. I was a dumb voter — but I wasn’t totally an abnormal voter. Another thing I later learned was that Allegheny County was strange for making the county coroner an elected office; of the 50 largest counties in the country, only Franklin County (Ohio) votes for coroner. Allegheny decided to do away with electing the coroner in 2005, instead having the county executive appoint the coroner, but many small counties across the country still put the position to a public vote (and lots of counties out West combine the post with sheriff). That brings me to the second “why”: Why should the general population elect the coroner? There’s a simple answer: Making the position accountable to the public is a check on corruption. But that answer invites two more questions: First, how’d that work out for you, Allegheny County? Not so well, looks like. And second, how could voters possibly be expected to have informed knowledge about candidates for niche offices they don’t really know anything about? I’m going to give you three takes now, each bolder than the last. First, you should participate in our nation’s representative democracy. Election Day is right around the corner, and I think you should vote. ![Like the subject of this Norman Rockwell painting, Stout Cortez stands and delivers | "Freedom of Speech" - NARA - 513536](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4a/93/4a939b47-6a19-4b38-a13c-89d5a0f0d6dd/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-8a3bad7e-5b2d-49c9-a134-05975238d6bb.png) Like the subject of this Norman Rockwell painting, Stout Cortez stands and delivers | "Freedom of Speech" - NARA - 513536 My second, somewhat bolder claim is that I don’t think you should vote in every race. Ballots across the country will feature elections for offices you may know nothing about, with a lineup of candidates you probably couldn’t pull a fictional name out of if one had been ferreted in. Magistrate, bailiff, commissioner, auditor, court clerk, register of deeds, soil and water supervisor — these roles all perform important tasks (presumably). But if you don’t know what the position is or whom you’re voting for, then you probably shouldn’t vote. Third, a lot of things that end up on the standard November ballot shouldn’t be our calls to make at all. There’s obviously a balance to strike with representative democracy. You want voters to be able to elect their leaders. But the coroner? The soil and water supervisor? With respect to [Buncombe County](https://www.buncombenc.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/992?ref=readtangle.com), North Carolina, should we really expect the public to be able to provide appropriate levels of oversight to the position tasked with erosion prevention? One of the most important reasons we elect people into public office is to exercise appropriate judgment over a range of matters, including overseeing civil services and appointing departmental leaders and key positions. That shouldn’t be our job. I’ll go so far as to say that most *ballot initiatives* — policy measures put before the public to decide directly — shouldn’t be up to us. That’s the whole reason we elect a legislature: to legislate. Here are a few measures put to a public vote in the last few years. Californians have voted on whether certain healthcare providers must spend 98% of revenue from a federal drug-discount program on direct patient care, Coloradans have voted on whether to ban hunting lynx, Mainers have voted on whether to print every section of their state constitution, and Massachusettsans have voted on whether the state auditor can audit the legislature. If I were to vote on any of those questions, I’d first have to understand why this was put in front of me instead of decided in my state capitol. Because I think I’d have good reason to be suspicious about ulterior motives. In 2018, Californians voted on whether EMTs were required to keep their pagers on during breaks; the ballot measure sounded like it was putting a public safety concern to the electorate. But in reality, the state was using the language of public safety so voters could resolve a worker dispute (which they did; the measure passed). Maybe, in the Trump era, I’ve just slid my standards for how much control an executive ought to be able to exert over government appointments. Maybe, on the complete other side of the coin, I actually have a naive big-government faith in the rank-and-file members of the bureaucratic state to execute their charges. Or maybe I’m lazy, or I’m naive, or I have too little faith in my fellow voter. Or maybe, and I really think this is the one, I’m simply correct. Maybe I have appropriate levels of faith in our representatives, our civil servants, and my fellow voter. Because really — this shouldn’t be up to us. Charming coroners shouldn’t be able to put a thrall on the public and convince us that they should be the ones with one hand on the formaldehyde and the other in the public coffers. If we’ve learned anything from Cyril Wecht, it’s that when we make voters decide issues they aren’t informed about, name recognition matters as much as competence, flash as much substance, and corruption not at all. I say again: this shouldn’t be up to us. --- *Stout Cortez is a former Pittsburgher and Californian who remembers the 2005 Steelers fondly. He wishes Mike Tomlin the best in his Minecraft world, and he’s glad it was never his decision to vote for or against him to coach the team.*