When Culver City voters go to the polls in November for the School Board election and next April for the City Council election, turnout will be around 20 percent.
Democratic legislators think it would be a capital idea if 50 percent voted.
Like most populist ideas advanced by Democrats, it sounds irresistibly logical, and so undeniably appealing that it must be the Concept of the Year.
A month ago, the state Assembly, by 41-28, easily approved a bill by San Diego Sen. Ben Hueso that says:
Starting Jan. 1, 2018, local and state elections must be consolidated in cities where the turnout has been at least 25 percent below the city’s average turnout during the last four statewide general elections.
Inside City Hall, City Councilmember Megan Sahli-Wells has been championing a similar notion for several years as a cost-saving measure.
This is an idea that Republicans generally resist and Democrats widely favor on simplistic grounds – it will forcibly elevate the raw voter turnout. And I do mean raw. Yippee? Heavily no.
These same Democrats love same-day registration, motor voter laws that allow drive-through registration – almost any scheme to greatly increase the turnout.
Assemblyman Luis Alejo of Watsonville embodies the Democrats’ anthem of numbers: “This is about voters,” he says, “your constituents, coming out and participating by a greater percentage.”
Not a small part of Democrats’ support of the concept is linked to the concept of compelling voters to participate in local elections on the same day they are casting ballots for state officers.
There is a powerful reason for the division in partisanship. Republicans traditionally vote in local elections and Democrats do not.
Therefore, following decades of tradition, Democrats reason, if (their) voters refuse to participate in local elections, compel them.
Republicans believe only informed voters should go to the polls.
Democrats believe cats, dogs, people, anyone who can mark an “x,” should, whether or not he knows the candidate or issue. Numbers, baby. That is our goal, say Democrats.
