Clark County voters have a little more than two weeks to mail or drop off ballots before the Nov. 7 election. But why wait? The Columbian urges all eligible residents to partake in the civic duty that forms the foundation of our representative democracy.
Convincing the electorate to get involved is becoming increasingly difficult, and the last odd-year election — 2015 — saw turnout of 34 percent in Clark County. That is 34 percent of registered voters. Not 34 percent of all residents or even 34 percent of all adults, but barely more than one-third of citizens who had signed up to receive a ballot. In other words, 85,541 people actively made decisions that impact a county of more than 460,000.
This lack of interest in voting undermines our political system and pulls at the fabric of our civilization. As Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman told The Columbian’s Editorial Board a while back: “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 for repeating that quote, but it remains one of the best explanations we have heard regarding the importance of odd-year elections. While voters get to select a president and state executives every four years, and while they get to choose congressional representatives in even-numbered years, it is the odd-year elections that hit closest to home.
