In our latest poll at HeraldNet.com, we asked whether you’ll vote in Washington’s presidential primary election. Your response: an emphatic 66 percent said YES.
Wait. … What?
I’ve recounted, recalculated and squinted really hard, but the computer spits out the same answer. An absurd two-thirds said you’ll vote in the May 24 primary.
Having verified our numbers, we are left with a few possible explanations:
Option A: You’re all talk. The Secretary of State’s Office predicts a “strong turnout” of 40 percent or so. Some who voted yes in our poll won’t actually expend the energy to drop a ballot in a mailbox.
Option B: I know this may come as a shock, but Internet polls may not be entirely accurate. Our polls’ margin of error is plus or minus 100 percent, which is why we take them with a spoonful of salt.
Option C: You enjoy futile pursuits that waste everyone’s time and money. What else do you like to do? Try to build sports arenas in Seattle?
Just this week, our primary went from a nearly inconsequential beauty contest to an utterly inconsequential beauty contest. For Democrats, it was already meaningless; they chose delegates based on the March 26 caucuses. Republicans use the primary to assign delegates, which would make it useful to about half of us if the phrase “presumptive nominee Donald Trump” hadn’t amazingly entered the lexicon.
Yet we will spend $11.5 million on a public opinion survey that carries as much weight as an Internet poll, and many of you will play along.
But why mail in that ballot when there are so many better uses for it? Cut it into paper dolls or an origami swan. Turn it into a paper airplane, or save it as an emergency rain shield.
Or put it in a gold frame, mount it on the wall, and sit back and admire your monument to frivolous spending.
— Doug Parry: parryracer@gmail.com; @parryracer
For more serious matters, we want to know which summer blockbuster has you ready to reach for your wallet.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.