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9Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Wayne Mayo, Betsy Johnson, Brad Witt, Former President Trump, Henry Heimuller, Joe Biden, Pat Robertson, Ted Cruz, Joe Biden’s dogs, or Claudia Eagle’s Cats. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Bill’s Standard Disclaimer
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Expect Low Turnout at the Polls
Why is it, Americans are so lazy to turn out to the polls?
With a partial count of ballots received on Monday, figures released by the secretary of state show the statewide percentage of ballots returned is 18.1%. Overall, Republicans 24.8% and Democrats 24.6% are voting at a similar rate, while unaffiliated voters, who are shut out of party primaries but can vote in nonpartisan contests, are barely bothering to open their ballots 7.3%. Here in Columbia County we are having the same problem as the rest of the state, low voter turnout. While we have some people spreading the lie that our election dept. is allowing people to vote twice and so forth. I can testify that that is not the case. I will be poll watching today Tuesday at 3 p.m. and my co- host from Odd Friday radio show, Brady Preheim reported to me last night that he poll watched Monday. Brady reported no issues that would be regarded as troublesome. The election dept. and counters were very professional and followed protocol.
Also no one voted twice as was claimed by some folks who still believe the Big Lie and that Trump won the election. The computer can detect the q number and see if its been used before, the number that identifies a ballot which is sent out.
We have a good system in Oregon for voting, all we need is more participation locally and state wide. Remember if you don’t vote don’t complain on what’s going on. I is your responsibility to change laws, leaders. Your government is only as good as its voters.
With a incomplete count of ballots received on Monday, figures released by the secretary of state show the statewide percentage of ballots returned out of party primaries but can vote in nonpartisan contests, are barely bothering to open their ballots 7.3%.
Some of the bluer counties are seeing even lower turnout, including Multnomah County at 16.5%, Lane County at 16.7% and Washington County at 16.8%. In Clackamas County, which announced earlier that its ballots had been misprinted, participation is even lower: 15.9%. Hopefully they get that straightened out.
How will the low turnout effect the top of the ticket? Tina Kotek D-Portland is running to the left of her main challenger, State Treasurer Tobias Read. The only recent publicly released polling results showed Kotek with a 5-point lead but most voters undecided.
There are some noteworthy differences in turnout among Democrats from county to county. In Deschutes County, for instance, more than 27% of Democrats have turned in their ballots, while in Multnomah County, just 21.8% of Democrats have voted. Older, more rural voters, may help Read narrow Kotek’s advantage.
Older folks usually vote in the primary, 79.4% of the 500,000 voters who have cast ballots are 50 or older. That’s a pretty big tilt, considering that only 49.2% of registered voters are 50 or above. As of May 13th…. Age breakdown to who has voted: 18-24 is only 3.9%- 25-34 is 5.2% - 35-49 9% - 50-64 is 17.1% 65+ 36.1% and a grand total of only 16.8% has voted. This is very sad indeed. I sure hope that the votes come in at the last minute. There are 2.9 million registered voters in Oregon but so far not many have voted. Many are registered because of motor voting adding about 800,000 voters, but many have zero interest in voting.
Closed partisan primaries exclude anyone but registered Democrats or Republicans from voting in primaries for governor, Congress and the Legislature. In 2018, only 14% of non-affiliated voters voted in the primary, compared to 44% of Democrats and 47% of Republicans.
Pacific University professor Jim Moore, who studies Oregon politics, told the Capital Chronicle he suspects low turnout so far is due to a lack of enthusiasm for candidates at the top of the ballot. Neither party’s primary for governor has a clear front-runner driving turnout, and there’s no reason to believe Sen. Ron Wyden won’t breeze to another term.
Recent polling in the Republican and Democratic primaries for governor showed that many voters hadn’t made up their minds. Former House Speaker Tina Kotek and state Treasurer Tobias Read are in a close race in a Democratic primary with 13 other lesser-known Democrats running, but the two have struggled to differentiate themselves and their policies. So people are like whatever. There’s nobody who’s really standing out and saying ‘I want to go in a new direction, people need to be excited to vote and its just not happening, its business as usual.
I guess we will see if the numbers improve much for this election cycle.
I was not excited this primary either, but I still did my duty as an American I cast my vote. And I hope you did too.
Tammy
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