Early Returns for the 2017 Primary

We Tri-City voters are well on our way to exceeding our 16.85% voter turnout for the 2015 primary. Voter turnout for the 2017 Primary as of 8:03 PM was already at a whooping 19.85%! There are an estimated 3000 ballots to count, which would bring our total returned ballots to 24,390. The number of registered voters is 107,770. Thus, we could achieve 22.63% voter turnout for the 2017 Primary, exceeding our 2015 turnout by almost 6 percentage points!

Clearly, Tri-City voters are excited about electing people to local office who represent their values and beliefs and will best reflect those values and beliefs in the policy decisions they make on voters' behalf. For example, city council council seats were featured during this election. What do they deal with? You can get a feel for it from this list of commissions/committees:

• The Arts Commission
• Block Grant Advisory Committee
• City's Consolidated Plan
• Community Development Block Grant,
• HOME Grant, and other grant programs as they relate to housing and community needs
• The Civil Service Commission
• Diversity Commission addressing the diverse culture in our community
• Conservation Commission works to identify and actively encourage the conservation of the City's historic
• The Parks and Recreation Commission
• Planning Commission is a seven-member body appointed by City Council as advisers on matters relating to land use, economic development, infrastructure, and urban design.

So, voters pretty much determine the livability and sustainability of our communities.

That's apparently why voters were so willing to pry open the envelop in which their ballots were delivered -- practically to their front door -- fill in the few boxes for their city, and put the ballots in the mail box sometime during the more than three weeks they had to do this. Some voters may even have done background checks on the candidates. WA Indivisible CD4 provided them a pamphlet that did the job for them, so perhaps the decisions they made were actually informed. One can only hope.

Something less than one quarter of voters in our communities will choose the people who may ultimately determine the livability and sustainability of our communities.

I'm overwhelmed!