7 May 2014

Why levies fail & low turnout FVCC election

Turnout in yesterday’s school board and levy elections in Kalispell, and the Flathead Valley Community College trustee elections, was shamefully low. By my rough reckoning, the turnout for the Kalispell elections was under 40 percent of the registered voters. The turnout in the FVCC election may have been below 25 percent.

I doubt that any levy for SD-5’s high school can pass unless it’s run as part of the general election, and then probably only in Presidential years. The economy is still anemic, and there’s an anti-tax mood in the outlying districts that seems to be strengthening. People opposed to tax increases are highly motivated to vote, and exercise a disproportionate amount of clout in low turnout elections.

Only six votes separated John Phelps and Marion K. Foley in the FVCC trustee election. That could change in the final canvass, although the probability that it will change is low. Winners Tom Harding and John Phelps each received just over one-fifth of the votes, hardly a mandate. John Fuller, the hard right retired high school civics teacher, received just 8.4 percent of the votes. He would be wise to interpret that as the electorate’s way of saying “Don’t run again.”