#646 Voting Safety

So in the recent elections, our county did pretty well as far as voter turnout, thanks to our great Auditors office. 46% of the registered voters voted. Impressive.
Still, we must remember registered voters are not necessarily all of the potential voters. The number of registered voters in Thurston County is about 134,000. So the number of people that voted and decided on what you and me are going to put up with in the way of crime prevention and school levies and stuff was only about 62,000.
And since most measures and officials were decided with a slight margin that means about 32,000 folks were victorious with their point of view. Therefore, out of a population of 234,000 about 13.5 % made the decision.
Such is voluntary democracy. It’s a lot like a lot of volunteer organizations I’ve been a part of, where 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
There are shepherds and there are sheep. It’s nature’s way.
But as I was perusing the election results on the excellent Thurston County elections website—google Thurston County elections—I noticed one or two interesting things.
First, there are actually elections for Commissioners of Cemetery Districts. I’ve been a voter for years and I don’t remember ever voting for a Commissioner of a Cemetery District.
It must be one of those towards the bottom of the ballot where everyone always seems to run uncontested.
Can’t imagine a heated and contentious race for Cemetery Commissioner, can you? What are the issues? Hole depth? What to use for mole and gopher removal. Giving the staff a ghouls night out?
The ironic thing though, is Cemetery District One—it’s in Grand Mound.
Where else?
The other ironic thing about the election was the measure to reduce the supermajority requirement of school levies. In a levy election, the poor schools have to get 60% of the voter turnout in the last general election to raise a levy.
It’s tough. Almost nothing passes by 60% in our contentious society.
Anyhow, it looks like statewide the measure may be either accepted or rejected. By 51 to 49 percent.
A simple majority.
America, ya gotta love it