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Health & Fitness

Voter Apathy Reigns in Long Beach's 4th Council District

In what can be described as one of the few elected public offices in Long Beach that can directly affect our lives on a daily basis, less than 1/5th of registered voters bothered to have their say.

As previousy noted in a blog post here at The Patch last April, in my opinion, far too few registered voters in Long Beach are exercising their right to vote.

That previous post followed an April 10th, 2012 election in Long Beach in which just 11.3% of eligible registered voters cast a ballot of one sort or another, for one office or issue or another.

According to unofficial results from this past election 4th Council District race, the turnout was better, but only slightly so, with just under 19% of registered voters in that District bothering to decide who will represent them on our City Council. More than 4/5ths (or 80%) of those in the 4th District who could have had a say, and who at some point even went to the trouble of registering so they could have a say, declined in this case to do so.

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http://www.longbeach.gov/cityclerk/elections/results/default.asp

According to the Patch news story linked below, the voter turn-out statewide was a slightly more embarrassing 17%. The statewide ballot included an opportunity for Long Beach voters, among others, to decide who would be running against whom in the newly-created 47th Congressional District, which includes almost all of Long Beach. The person eventually selected for this Congressional seat will represent some 700,000 people. 700,000 people, and less than 18% of registered California voters elible to do so, stepped up to express their preference of representation.

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Why is this, particularly in Long Beach?

With numerous, fully ADA-compliant polling places throughout the 4th Council District that operated from early morning to well into the evening, why did so few registered voters bother to show up?

With the option of reliable mail-in balloting, which allows any voter who desires to, to exercise his or her precious right to vote from the comfort and privacy of his or her own dining room table, why have so few bothered to avail themselves of either requesting a ballot by mail on a one-time basis or signing up as a permanent absentee and always voting in that fashion?

What is it about our society that prevents so many from exercising a critical right that so many others have quite literally fought and died to provide and maintain for them? What, as citizens, have some failed to understand about the critical importance of a truly representative government or that the only way to achieve that is through individual, direct participation in the process of selecting those who will represent them?

In the last post on this topic, readers offered some ideas as to why they thought the turn-out in the April 10th Long Beach election may have been so poor.

One reader suggested that some voters simply may not have known about the election.

Given the high profile local Long Beach media coverage of virtually any local political topic but especially our elections, I find this suggestion difficult to believe.

Is it possible for the Post Office to fail to deliver a mail-in ballot in a timely manner, as required? Of course. In fact, as a permanent absentee voter, I didn't receive my ballot for that election in the mail either. This had never happened to me before and I wasn't sure how to proceed.

The solution proved simple.

I reported to the local polling place assigned to my address, confirmed that my name was on their voter registration roles, showed my I.D. to prove who I was, and I was then able to complete a provisional ballot and vote. If there is truly a will and ability to vote, a registered voter will virtually always be able to do so.

Another reader suggested (paraphrasing) that we, as a society, might be better off if fewer of us voted so long as more of those who did vote, did so more intelligently.

While I certainly understand the frustration inherent in that sentiment, it is difficult for me to agree with it. If some members of our society fail to vote intelligently (based upon available facts and provable records, rather than vacuous sound-bytes and shallow bumper sticker slogans) then my preferred solution is to help educate that segment of our society on the candidates and issues, rather than require them to pass a pre-requisite test to prove themselves "qualified."

According to the US Census Bureau, as of 2011 an average 87.6% of Americans successfully earn a High School diploma. 56.9% of us have completed some college coursework. 40% of us have Associate and/or Bacherlor's degrees. 31% have earned under-graduate degrees. 8% have completed graduate studies, and 3% have earned post-graduate degrees.

While the question of the overall quality of a current-day U.S. High School education must necessarily be left for another time, I think it is fair to presume that anyone with a 12th grade education should reasonably be able to read a voter pamphlet produced by the state, county or city and learn at least the basics about the candidates and questions on any given ballot.

If not, perhaps making better efforts to factually inform such folks may be a more constructive response than attempting to prevent them from exercising one of their most sovereign individual rights.

So what do you think? Should more of us be voting every chance we get? Or does it just not matter much anymore? If it doesn't matter, why doesn't it?

If more of us should be voting, how do you think we can accompish that?

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