As you sit there staring at the unopened ballot for this odd-year election on the kitchen counter, allow us to provide some gentle motivation.
A couple of years ago, during a visit with The Columbian’s Editorial Board, Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman said: “The thing that’s frustrating is that voters turn out in droves for the presidential election, for a whole host of reasons. The president of the United States doesn’t really affect your daily life that much. But the people who do — the port commissioners and the city council members and the school board directors — are literally making decisions that affect your daily life, from the quality of your roads, the books your kids read in school, to how fast a first responder gets to you. Those decisions are made in these elections and, ironically, these have the lowest turnout.”
Forgive us if we have shared that quote in the past (and we have). We’ll probably share it in the future, as well, because it is a lucid articulation of the importance of elections and the importance of voting. Odd-year elections do not have the glare of presidential elections or mid-term elections, but they play an important role in formulating local government for the coming years.
Such is the case with ballots due Aug. 1 for this year’s primary election. The top two vote-getters in each race will advance to the Nov. 7 general election, and recent history shows that election officials will have a difficult time motivating the electorate.
For the most recent odd-year election, in 2015, about 26 percent of registered Clark County voters expressed their opinion in the primary. In a county of more than 450,000 residents, fewer than 65,000 people determined which candidates advanced to the general election. That was followed by turnout of 34 percent for the general election.
The 2015 election featured high-profile races for the Clark County council that helped lure voters, leaving little hope that participation will be more robust this time around. Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey expects turnout to be about 25 percent for the primary.
Not that such apathy is limited to Southwest Washington. Statewide, voter turnout for the 2015 primary was 25 percent — a tick below that of Clark County. That does not speak well for the strength of our democracy. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is credited with saying: “Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves, and the only way they could do this is by not voting.”
This year’s primary includes various races for local school boards and local city councils. For city of Vancouver residents, it also includes a five-person race for mayor. The general election in two months will feature the finalists for these races, plus those that drew no more than two candidates.
As Wyman explained, these are elected positions that impact the daily lives of residents. We encourage voters to study the candidates and the issues before casting an informed ballot. The Columbian can assist in that quest through news coverage of the races, Editorial Board interviews with many candidates (http://tinyurl.com/y7lvwemw), and recommendations on key races (http://tinyurl.com/gmjon38). If you would like to register to vote or change your registration, information can be found online (http://tinyurl.com/ycqjworj).
Ballots must be dropped off or postmarked by Aug. 1. But that’s never going to happen if you leave yours unopened on the kitchen counter.
