Editorial: Is undervoting a ballot trend?
Publication Date: 11/07/08
St. Johns County Supervisor of Elections Penny Halyburton said Wednesday that election reports show many voters skipped races on Tuesday's general election ballot.
The undervotes were so high, in our view, they likely changed the outcome of some races.
An undervote is when a voter leaves a race blank. There also were some overvotes but nothing compared to the thousands who just didn't vote in every race.
Was the ballot so long that voters just didn't vote it all?
In local races, for example:
* More than 36,000 voters ignored each of two Airport Authority races.
* More than 32,000 ignored each of three Mosquito Control District races.
* A total of 2,788 did not vote in the hotly contested District 5 School Board race where every vote will matter. The ballots counted Tuesday gave incumbent Carla Wright a three-vote margin over challenger and former principal, Lionel "Skeeter" Key. A recount adding in the results of some 136 provisional ballots will determine the winner today.
* The controversial home rule charter proposal got defeated, but 15,361 also did not vote on it.
* Some 9,371 ignored the conservation lands and transportation local option sales tax, also defeated.
Halyburton said voters may have skipped a race if they knew nothing about it.
Good thinking. "When in doubt, leave it out."
There were only 215 undervotes in the presidential race and that causes us to conclude that people came out to vote for a president. No one can be forced to vote any or all races. We're sure Halyburton has undervoting on her list of issues to try to resolve before the 2010 election season.
Does anyone want to tell us why they skipped a race or two? Is this a trend? Voter apathy?
Every election, some pundit asks, "What if they had an election and nobody came?"
Well?
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1 comment:
Well, I can say that, as a young voter, there were a lot of items on the ballot I truly didn't care about.
Mosquito control? I imagine that's a fairly autonomous gig. You spray for mosquitos, done.
It could also be that I'm uninformed about the responsibilities of mosquito control, too. That's much more likely the case.
I think I'll write a letter to the editor reflecting this. I know, in my case, I just didn't care about a lot of them.
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