[Grovenet] Reflections on Minority Rule

[Jeff Cooper]

According to today's Oregonian the Public Safety levy will fail.  Please note the following statistics:
Partial returns show the levy passing by a 3 to 1 margin.
The measure will fail because of a 44.1% turnout (50% required).

This election shows the folly and difficulty of the 50% law.  First, 44% truly reflects a strong turnout for an election with truly only one issue (only one of the school board vacancies were contested and indeed a large number of site council positions had no candidate at all).  

Some may argue that this 3-1 margin shows overwhelming support for the levy, but the election set-up skews results.  Many voters may have purposefully stayed away from the election because they knew that if they voted "no" they might have *helped the levy pass."  Simple math shows the following:

8,712 Registered voters @ 44.1% turnout = 3842 votes cast
3 to 1 ratio of yea to nay = 2882 yeah and 960 nay
Assuming that all the yea voters voted (they have to vote in to pass the levy), if another 514 residents cast their votes (assuming all nays), then the measure would have passed.  Indeed, it would have taken almost 2000 more nay votes or 5764 total votes with a whopping 67% turnout to vote down the levy.  

This leads to my following conclusions which may have been discussed before,  and are by no means the last word on the subject but I feel are valid:
1. Single issue ballots should not come to referendum if a 50% rule is in order. 
2. The democratic process in general is undermined when not voting is more powerful than voting.  As noted above, if 500 more voters voted nay, the levy would have passed.
3. The law requiring a 50% turnout should be repealed.

Yes, I'm a transplanted Berkeley liberal, but I feel that this issue transcends party lines and strikes directly at the fundamentals of democracy.  My own feelings about the levy notwithstanding, I'm appalled that we live within a system that allows an overwhelming 3 to 1 *voted* mandate to go down to defeat in this way.  A system which discourages people from voting should not be continued in this country.

Regards,

Jeff Cooper

       
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