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Election clerk Martha Apel, 89, has been doing her civic duty on election day since 1944. This year she volunteered at Elsie Allen High School on Tuesday morning. (John Burgess / PD)
By LORI A. CARTER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
In an election with few hot-button issues, voter turnout in Sonoma County was “dismal,” the elections chief said late Tuesday.
About a quarter of the county’s 248,216 registered voters returned their ballots before Election Day, a total of 65,082.
As votes from the county’s 374 precincts began to arrive at the elections office late Tuesday, Sonoma County Registrar Janice Atkinson said it appeared turnout would be among the lowest in years.
“They’re just dribbling in,” she said, standing by her earlier forecast that 50-53 percent of the county’s registered voters would turn in their ballots.
The most walk-in voters at any precinct was 148, she said. Some precincts have more than 2,000 registered voters.
Three contested supervisorial races, two congressional seats and four state legislative contests were on the ballot, along with just two statewide ballot measures.
An estimated 25,000 to 35,000 vote-by-mail ballots were expected to arrive in the mail on Tuesday or be turned in at polling places. They will not be immediately counted.
Elections officials have 28 days to certify the final count.
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Jim, you’re mixing a few facts in now, but saying “voting doesn’t mean anything” is an opinion, and that’s what I was responding to. And yes, I think (opinion here, notice) that saying “voting doesn’t mean anything” is cynical whining. If you want to be effective in changing the way things happen, by all means get involved, go talk to your congresscritters, run for office, petition your government for redress.
There’s a lot you can do to improve how we govern ourselves, but as that rich lady from Marin County just learned, it has to start with voting and voting each time there’s an election or people just won’t find your complaints credible.
Words have meaning, and I really think you should learn to distinguish between “fact” and “opinion” before attempting to obfuscate the latter by mixing in examples of the former.
Whining? Why is it when facts are put on the table it is whining?
It is a fact that Healdsburg is $100 million in the hole. It is a fact that Sonoma County is $100 million in the hole. It is a fact the state has a hidden $500+ billion unfunded pension liability. It is a fact that the liars in the Legislature say there is a $9 billion deficit when there is a $15 billion deficit (and we’re supposed to believe that it is only $15 billion). The liars always say there isn’t enough money for “police, fire and teachers” and thus MORE tax “revenue” is needed. This is the same song and dance performed year after year at every level of government, by the same re-elected folks. And, when one “retires” from “public service”, someone else steps in and starts singing and dancing the same way. And the people vote for what?
Where is the “whining”? I think trying to open the eyes of the people is important, more important than “sticking a slip of paper in the mail” and thinking is actually means something. Ignorance of the facts doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Jim, there’s a whole lot more a person can do to participate in our system of government than that one thing on election day. Personally I believe everyone should at least run for elected office once in their life if possible – the experience teaches a lot.
My point was that if you won’t even stick a slip of paper in the mail saying “I agree/disagree with this!” then forget about complaining afterwards. You’ve already abrogated that right, and no amount of cynical whining about rigged systems improves anything nor does it make you right.
Please explain to me how “showing up” and voting is participating.
Spending time and energy voting for one candidate when, regardless of who actually wins, nothing ever changes is not “participating”. It is being duped into thinking you are participating.
The political system is rigged. Think about it…every city, every county and every state is facing the exact same problem – overspending bureaucrats who endlessly look for ways to expand their pay, their benefits and remain in power. It is impossible to believe that, in a “democracy”, basically every state, county and city faces the exact same problem unless the system is rigged to get the same morons in office.
I credit Michael Allan and his hundreds of thousands in special interest and Sacramento money putting out negative campaign ads. Norman Soloman did the same thing.
People who won’t even bother to show up for this basic level of participation in democracy give up the right to complain about the result. You gotta show up.
This is because all candidates are exactly the same. None of them have any solid ideas, other than fluffy garbage like “environment”, “green”, “raise taxes”. Then they point to their opponent and say ‘I’m better than them.’
A perfect example is Pete Stark. Watch the videos on Youtube of Stark’s encounter with a member of the Minutemen in a town hall meeting. He is a joke, yet is re-elected over and over. A worthless politician with no skill or intelligence. Yet, he’s re-elected over and over.
The political system is an embarrassment, and most people would rather not waste their time voting for one incompetent fool over another, when the end result, evidenced by decades of government expansion and waste of stolen money, is the same year after year.