Community Corner

Abysmal Primary Voter Turnout Was Shameful

Those who did cast ballots shaped general election races.

Primary voter turnout is usually low, but Tuesday's showing at the polls was one of the worst I can recall since I starting casting ballots in 1979.

It's not as if people weren't told. Plenty of campaign signs dotted the landscape. Media outlets -- including Patch, local newspapers and television stations -- covered the races extensively. Maybe they chose to ignore it all.

Maybe it's because Pennsylvania's primaries are "closed" to independent voters. Still, Republicans and Democrats turned out in very small numbers to support candidates.

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The sad reality is that November's general election races were shaped by the small amount of citizens who actually bothered to cast ballots.

Consider the following:

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-- Brad Osborne got the fourth and final nod in the Lehigh County GOP Commissioner race by over David Najarian. That's from just more than 83,600 votes cast, according to Lehigh County voter registration numbers.

-- A Magisterial District Judge was selected Tuesday night in District 31-3-02. His name is , who swept both the Republican and Democratic primaries. A total of 5,233 Lehigh County voters cast ballots in that race. Faulkner won the Republican nod handily, by about 1,000 votes. However, less than 200 votes separated Faulkner and his nearest competitor in the Democratic race.

-- How many people cast ballots in the Upper Macungie Township supervisors race? A total of 1,092, according to Lehigh County. Yes, both Republican and Democratic races were uncontested, but that shoddy number gives you a glimpse of how many of its more than 20,000 residents didn't bother to show up at the polls throughout the township Tuesday.

-- A total of 17,767 voters throughout the Parkland School District cast votes for the school board candidates. It won't be known for who actually moves on to November's general election.

Three of the four races mentioned above involve bodies who have the authority to raise or lower our taxes. People love to kvetch about higher taxes, but when it comes to taking time to walk the walk, those same folks pass on casting votes.

If they do come out in November, the majority wonder how the candidates wound up on the ballot in the first place.

I don't like exclusion, but maybe an election law stating that only those voters who bothered to show up for the primaries in their respective parties can cast ballots in the general election. And, the Commonwealth should repeal the laws excluding independent voters from making their voices heard.

Maybe that would get voters off their collective duffs. Then again, maybe it wouldn't.

Is there that much voter apathy out there or are people just too lazy (and or overly stressed by other matters) that they can't be bothered to take a few minutes to stop by their polling places to cast a vote?

Tell us what you think in the comments.


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