Update. After posting the article below, I learned that not all voters in Flathead County were eligible to vote in this election. So when, if, that information is made available, I’ll update my estimates on turnout percentages (which still will be be appallingly low). Why FVCC’s election administrators, who do know of my post on the election, do such a poor job of making information available is beyond my ken. But I do know the cure: have the county elections department run all government associated elections in Flathead County. They’re the experts, and it’s foolish not to use their expertise fully.
All residents of Flathead County should be ashamed of the appalling low turnout in yesterday’s election for the board of trustees at Flathead Valley Community College. We have 61,122 registered voters, but just 6,088 votes were cast — and because each voter could cast two votes, the number of ballots cast was undoubtedly closer to 3,044 (some voters, seeking maximum advantage for a candidate, may have cast only one vote), which means the turnout was less than 10 percent and possibly lower than five percent. (We don’t know how many ballots were cast because FVCC didn’t bother publishing that information.)
Here are the preliminary results as published last night on FVCC’s slower than a chilled arthritic turtle website:
My congratulations to Mark Holston and Shannon Lund. Their re-election to the board well serves the college and community.
But an election with a turnout of less than 10 percent ill serves everyone. There’s no excuse for such an insult to democracy, but there is a cure: extend the terms to four years, and put the choices to the voters on the general election ballot in even numbered years. That will require an act of the legislature, and FVCC’s trustees should take the lead in getting this done.
The trustees should also — and pronto — authorize upgrading FVCC’s website so that it doesn’t keep visitors waiting. I have a high speed cable connection to the internet, but it literally takes minutes for a page at FVCC to load fully. It’s as though the college’s server is an old PC in a closet somewhere on campus instead of a modern server run by a large and reliable commercial hosting firm. Something is wrong, and it needs to be fixed.