Your ballot asks you to vote at least 23 times, one more if your district elects a state senator this year, even more if you have a local ballot measure or two.
The number of decisions is actually a little smaller because each of the three state Supreme Court positions and a few state legislative seats have only one candidate.
Still, we have too many decisions to make. Few of us are qualified to choose judges, a state treasurer or a lands commissioner.
We can easily eliminate four or five elected state offices and four or five elected county offices. Until 40 years ago, we elected a county superintendent of schools. Before we adopted a home-rule charter, we elected a coroner; most counties still do. Now, it’s time to eliminate some other elective offices. Let the county executive appoint the assessor, sheriff, treasurer and, possibly, the auditor; let the court administrator appoint the clerk; and let the governor appoint a treasurer, lands commissioner and insurance commissioner.
I especially don’t understand why we elect a state schools superintendent. Think of the logic. In our local communities, we elect a school board, which appoints a superintendent. Yet, at the state level, we have an elected superintendent and an appointed school board. Let’s elect members of the state school board and let it appoint the superintendent.
Hard decisions down the ballot
For now, we have to decide on nine statewide offices.
Of those, we hear about candidates for governor, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction and lands commissioner. We also hear about a couple of high-profile ballot measures. But, most of us have little to go on when we vote on other statewide offices and ballot measures.
Hard to run for down-ballot offices
If voting for down-ballot offices is hard, so is running for them.
I talked two weeks ago with one of the candidates for state treasurer who told me about having paid for one Seattle radio ad and trying to raise money for another.
So, while we the two candidates for governor have told us more than we want to hear, the candidates for the other statewide positions find it hard to get their messages out.
Are election results already decided?
I helped organize a debate 10 days ago on one of the statewide initiatives. As the event ended, someone told me she had already voted.
With people getting mail ballots two-and-a-half weeks before the election, campaigning, debating and comments in this and other papers may be too late.
Thousands of people in this state have already voted. So while candidates for governor and other offices are seeking our votes, they may be too late for many voters.
This may be even more true in other states that started early poll voting several weeks ago.
Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor. Send comments to entopinion@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
