6 October 2016

Kalispell school bond turnout was under 50 percent

Slightly less than half of the registered voters in School District 5 cast ballots in Tuesday’s school bond elections. The table below displays the preliminary vote totals as reported in yesterday’s Daily InterLake (but not on the school district’s website).

Although the turnout was high for a special bond election, it was lower than the 52 percent turnout of registered voters in Flathead County in the 2014 general election, and the county’s 72 percent turnout in the general election of 2012.

Balloting for the 2016 general election begins next week and concludes on the evening of 8 November. The turnout of registered voters in Flathead County probably will be around 70 percent. If the school district had put the bond elections on the general election ballot, it’s highly probable that thousands more bond votes would have been cast, giving the election greater political legitimacy.

Approximately 46 percent of the Flathead’s registered voters live in School District 5.