You might be surprised to learn who got the most votes on Nov 4th. It wasn’t Sam Liccardo or Dave Cortese. It wasn’t Mike Honda or Ro Khanna. None of those candidates garnered even a quarter of the votes. The overwhelming winner of this election was Nobody.
Fifty percent of Santa Clara County’s registered voters, 401,336 people in total, chose to send a message of no confidence by not voting. Candidates and PACs spent millions in San Jose. One day I counted 12 political mailers in my mailbox. We got bombarded by mail, TV ads, radio ads, and YouTube and internet ads. We knocked on thousands of doors, we organized hundreds of events, we made tens of thousands of phone calls. And yet, despite all that (or perhaps because of all that), Santa Clara County had record low turnout, barely breaking half at a measly 50.18%. For a quarter century, non-presidential gubernatorial elections have consistently pulled in 60% of voters, that is, until this year’s anemic turnout. San Jose’s next opportunity to practice mass voter indifference will come this April in the District 4 election to replace the city council seat vacated by Kansen Chu’s state assembly win; that is, unless we do something about it.
In San Jose, it was a multi-million dollar horse race between two candidates split down clear cut and impassioned lines. Public safety was on the top of everyone’s minds. Both sides pounded away on each other’s Measure B viewpoints. Yet, only 43% of voters in San Jose cast a ballot for either candidate. Sam Liccardo won by garnering a yes from only 22% of San Jose’s registered voters. The situation for the hotly contested US representative District 17 seat was only a little better, with 48% of voters casting for Mike Honda or Ro Khanna. The races weren’t boring, there were good candidates. So why didn’t people come out to vote?
When you look at the trends, it’s hard to ignore the fact that we’ve just come off of 6 years of historically high voter turnout. A record 86% of Santa Clara County Voters came out in 2008 to elect Barack Obama, and 80% returned four years later. It’s not clear if voter angst is more directed at a president who promised more change than he could deliver, or a disenfranchised city that is fed up with local politics.
There are significant consequences for the low voter turnout. The number of signatures needed to get statewide propositions on the ballot is determined by the number of votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. For the next four years, the signature requirement for a statewide statute will drop from more than 500,000 signatures to only about 350,000; a very significant difference. For better and for worse, we can expect a slew of propositions in the next four years. (It should be noted that local recall initiatives are not affected, since the number of required signatures is determined by registered voters, not voter turnout.)
Statewide propositions aside, there are even bigger problems brewing under the low voter turnout. Non-voters are more likely to be minorities; voters are more likely to be well educated and white. The disenfranchised voices are among the most needed in the democratic process, but were the least likely to vote this past November. The passionate events surrounding Ferguson, Missouri have shown that young minorities care deeply about their local government. With the razor thin margins in recent elections, young minorities could easily cast the swing votes. But at the end of the day, the democratic system will always work for those who vote; if young disenfranchised minorities don’t vote, the system is unlikely to work for them. That scenario is not in anyone’s best interests.
As a community, we must all work towards restoring confidence in the democratic system, for minorities and majorities, for the young and the old alike. It has led us well for 238 years; now those of us who care need to exert the effort to keep it going for another 238!
Brett Bymaster is an education advocate and community activist.
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