For better or worse, the first of this year’s elections is now behind us. And voter turnout was disappointingly low.
We could throw a bunch of numbers at you, but here are the highlights: Statewide, 30.32% of registered voters cast ballots in the primary election, and no county had participation higher than 45%; in fact, most had turnout rates in the high 20s to mid 30s. In Monongalia County, 28.09% of registered voters cast ballots. In comparison, Preston County had an impressive 39.83%.
So what does all that mean?
It means that roughly one-third of voters decided who gets to appear on the ballot in November. And in a one-party state like West Virginia, that means the primary is often more important than the general election; whoever wins the Republican Party nomination is more than likely to prevail come November.
But the primary isn’t just about who faces off in the general election — it’s also the final election for multiple nonpartisan offices. So that means one-third of voters made the final decision on who sits on the local boards of education, who presides over our courts and which levies get renewed — all things that directly impact our communities as a whole, if not us personally.
It’s disappointing that so many people chose to sit on the sidelines and allow a minority to dictate our collective futures.
We understand that politics is messy — often depressing and/or enraging. It often feels like the same mouths are speaking the same useless words over and over again and nothing ever changes. Especially since this year’s national election is haunted by an unshakeable sense of déjà vu. It’s easy to become disillusioned, not just with politicians, but with the whole democratic institution. It can feel like our voices and votes don’t matter.
That line of thinking, though, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don’t feel like our vote matters, so we don’t vote. But when enough of us don’t vote, then the votes of a handful of people matter even more. Like we said, 30% of the state’s voters have essentially determined who will fill state and local offices next year. Less than 30%, actually, if you subtract the Democratic and Mountain Party voters, though we can’t discount the Independents who chose a partisan ballot. (There were roughly 224,000 Republican ballots cast, 96,000 Democratic ballots and 380 Mountain Party ballots.)
And maybe our votes don’t matter so much in the biggest national election. However, despite how large the presidential election looms in our lives, it’s not the most important race on the ballot, and too many voters forget that.
Maybe your single ballot won’t decide who sits in the White House, but it could determine who sits on your city council or school board; it could be the tipping point for whether a levy passes or fails. It can make a difference in who sits in the Legislature or the Governor’s Mansion. That’s why your vote matters.
We’ll be at the polls in November. We hope to see you there.
