Updated: Did Pre-Paid Postage Increase Voter Turnout?

Elections officials and political party leaders have long been concerned over what at times is an abysmal turnout of voters on our elections, especially in midterm or off-year elections. By all appearances it seems that unless a president is being elected, the majority of registered voters can’t be bothered to cast their vote.

In my opinion that is a deadly position to take as it is during those non-presidential elections when most local officials are elected, mayors, city council, county council or commissioners, each with more direct effect on citizens than any president.

An experiment was tried this year in Clark County of sending out postage pre-paid envelopes to entice voters to send in their ballots, since we are all mail-in voting. Did it improve anything?

Just days before the actual election date, the local newspaper of record, the Lazy C (aka the Columbian) ran an article, Ballot returns way ahead of a year ago where County Auditor Greg Kimsey is quoted saying, “it’s hard to say at this point if the bump in returns is due to prepaid postage or an increase in voter participation. We’re also seeing a reduction in the number of returns to ballot drop sites.”

While pre-paid postage no doubt had some voters drop ballots in the mail over driving to a drop box to drop off their ballot, it isn’t exactly a fair representation to equate this year’s election, a midterm election, to the off year election a year ago.

Reason is traditional turnout is highest during presidential election years, followed by midterm elections, those half way through a president’s term and the elections of in between, or off-year seeing the lowest returns of all.

To get a better view of this year’s midterm election to past years I did a little research in election archives to compare. As of this date, Aug 11, 2018 we are so far seeing a ballot return of 35.38% which will increase slightly once the election certified and all ballots are counted. I would guess we will see around 37%.

So how does that stack up with past midterm elections?

Looking through the archives I found 2002: 37.15% 2006: 35.74% 2010: 38.99% 2014: 28.61% in midterm primary turnout.

Turnout for off-year election during the same period was; 2001: 21.45% 2003: 25.45% 2005: 43.91% 2007: 30.23% 2009: 23.29% 2011: 21.82% 2013: 19.56% 2015: 25.88% 2017: 16.16%.

As can be seen, turnout for off-year elections is poor, much lower each and every year.

For midterm elections, while better than seen in 2014, it falls right in line with previous midterm elections, but accomplished little to overcome voter apathy.

And of course, this was an experiment, a try me if you will, to see if voters would be more inclined to mark and return their ballots and I highly doubt one election would be enough to determine the overall effectiveness.

The down side of course, taxpayers are again footing the bill.

In my personal opinion, voter apathy is a multifaceted problem and has no simple solution.

What it will take to wake up the masses in between presidential elections is a mystery to me. Reasons each registered voter does not vote are likely as varied as the voters themselves.

But I’ll also add the internal battles of local political parties and the deep ideological divide and extreme incivility between partisans with their ongoing vitriolic and demeaning jabs at each other isn’t helping.

I have said to others, while the partisan battles for power and control rage on, there is a whole country out here falling apart.

Voter apathy seems to be more a symptom of a much larger problem facing us.

UPDATE: County sees drop in mailed ballots even with postage paid

“Only 63.4 percent of ballots for this year’s primary election were returned through the U.S. Postal Service, according to Clark County Elections Office, which certified the Aug. 7 election results Tuesday. Last year, the return rate by mail was 66.4 percent. In the last midterm primary, 2016, returns via the post office were 58.7 percent.”

Lazy C, Against Guns but for Socialism?

This blog has never shied away from stating how the Lazy C, aka the Columbian newspaper, fails the very community it claims to serve with its bias and ignoring allegations of wrongdoing when it comes to Democrats.

Where they lack in deep investigative journalism locally, they make up by promoting whatever the latest agenda of the left may be.

Case in point, two editorials in the Sunday, Aug 5, 2018 edition, In Our View: Printing Guns a Dire Danger and Fear of socialism distorting nation’s political discourse.

The sudden irrational fear of 3D printed guns doesn’t come as a surprise. The media has long been against private citizens owning firearms and fearmongering on easily printed out guns they claim are untraceable is par for the course.

While we usually see an onslaught of calls for gun bans and more intrusive background checks right after a mass shooting, now we see it as news has come out of plans being available to just print out a plastic gun on a 3D printer.

They claim, “Making blueprints available would provide a loophole in gun laws to be exploited by criminals ranging from terrorists to street gangs.”

What seems left on the editors floor is how inefficient such plastic guns would be as well as the extreme expense of creating one, 3D printers capable being excessively expensive and the several days required to have one come out of the printer.

Also ignored is criminals and terrorists could obtain real firearms quicker and cheaper from illegal arms dealers or even assemble them from discarded materials found in dumpsters behind machine shops or hardware stores.

The Lazy C does approach some honest journalism, though, but don’t quite get there when they state, “Americans must focus on the sickness that is our obsession with guns. That sickness is rotting us from the inside; 3D weapons are merely a symptom.”

The “obsession” isn’t in owning a gun as much as it is wanting to defend ourselves and our families from those obsessed with doing us harm in some manner.

The real “obsession” is the severely mentally ill not receiving adequate treatment or their illness not being included in background check data that should prevent them from purchasing a firearm legally.

Also in play is the “obsession” of some communities today wanting to blame and prosecute ‘victims’ of theft should a firearm they own be stolen and used in committing a crime.

In other words, the Lazy C along with many in the leftist media laying blame on everything for shootings, except the one pulling the trigger!

You can read more at Five things to know about 3D printed guns

Fear of Socialism

It’s almost laughable to see the Lazy C expressing a deep fear of plastic guns the same day they claim some nefarious “fear of socialism” distorts national political discourse. Especially considering the unreasonable and ongoing vitriol exhibited towards the duly elected president, Donald Trump. (Disclaimer: I remain no fan of Trump, but accept he was duly elected and entitled to govern within the constitution and laws of the United States)

Where the paper gets it wrong is that we “fear” socialism. It isn’t fear motivating those of us opposing it, but “knowledge” of what socialism is and where it leads.

The failures of Socialism are clearly seen where once prosperous and wealthy Venezuela languishes in poverty and unrest today: Socialism Has Destroyed Venezuela; Venezuela, a rich country ruined by socialist dictators.

Socialist Democrats like Senator Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who recently defeated an incumbent Democrat in New York’s 14th congressional district primary quickly point to Scandinavian State Socialism as a counter.

In typical fashion, the increasing angst of those countries is ignored or glossed over: No, Bernie Sanders, Scandinavia is not a socialist utopia; Look at What’s Going to Happen to Sweden’s Fabled Welfare State.

Should we ever slide into so-called “Democratic Socialism,” would get to the point where a woman is Shamed for being a stay-at-home mum and as reported in a Wall Street Journal article (behind a paywall), “The Swedish government … promotes the false idea that mothers are not uniquely important to babies. Women who prefer to stay home with very young children are stigmatized as regressive and antifeminist. The Feminist Initiative, a radical political party, touts [Government funded] day care as a way to ‘liberate women from their maternal instincts’.”

This barely scratches the surface of what harm Socialism has done to human beings over the years.

I cannot imagine working hard every day just to be forced to pay between 60% and 70% or more of my paycheck to pay for those doing less than I do.

And that is the main failure of Socialism. In spite of grand claims and promises of “free stuff,” someone must pay for it, whatever it is. When those working the hardest see the rewards of their labor going to those who do little, they lose the initiative to work harder, seeing no reward to it.

That is when society begins crumble with fewer and fewer working hard to make society succeed and prosper.

Again I’ll state, no it is not a “fear of Socialism,” but knowledge and awareness of just what Socialism is and what harm it always leads to.