If you’re a regular reader of the letters on this page, you know that political passions run high in Snohomish County.
But based on the anemic turnout in Tuesday’s primary election, the county’s electorate barely has a pulse. Only about 90,000 of the county’s 324,000 registered voters — fewer than 28 percent — even bothered to cast a ballot, a light turnout indeed for the weighty decisions that were made.
Fully 234,000 Snohomish County residents left it to others to decide which two candidates will run to replace three-term county Executive Bob Drewel. In Arlington, the incumbent mayor was voted out of office with less than a third of the electorate weighing in.
Even in the Marysville School District, where passions are near an all-time high because of the labor dispute between district leadership and teachers, barely a quarter of registered voters cast a ballot in the race for a school board position.
What gives? Are voters so satisfied with government that their involvement seems unnecessary? That’s unlikely. Are they too busy to care? There might be something to that, but who doesn’t care about the taxes they pay?
A democracy that has shined for 227 years will yield its share of complacency. But a 72 percent rate of detachment signals a real aversion to the political process. Candidates need to take this problem seriously, and act in concrete ways:
The Democratic race for county executive took a nasty turn in its final days when one of the candidates, Kevin Quigley, mailed out an ugly attack piece full of distortions and inaccuracies. Aaron Reardon, the target of that mailing and the eventual nominee, failed to resist the urge to answer with his own mailing that, while factual, took the political low road.
Campaign gurus will cite research that shows negative campaigning works. From a narrow, winner-take-all viewpoint, they’re probably right. But a broader view argues that negative ads hurt the process by turning voters off to the point that they beg out of the process altogether. That’s a view that any worthy political leader should embrace.
Let’s hope that all the candidates in the general election will resolve to run positive, issues-oriented campaigns. It might not be the complete solution to poor voter turnout, but it sure couldn’t hurt.
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