Thumbs down to thinking voters are dumb

By STEVE MILLER 

Editor

Klamath Falls Herald and News

November 6, 2010

   It seems to me that there was a good bit of surprise on the proponents’ side of the local advisory vote on the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement — Measure 18-80. They expected to win the race handily; instead, they lost by a small, yet decisive, margin. But their surprise didn’t match the shock on the other side ... opponents had expected to lose. Some didn’t even think it would be close.

   Thumbs Down: To thinking voters make dumb decisions.

   There’s nothing wrong with trying to interpret results. (We mislabel a lot of that as “spin,” a negative connotation for “interpretation.”) If you are one side or the other, you have to look at election results and figure out what they mean. The only time interpretation isn’t necessary is when you are giving up and quitting. Why would either side of the KBRA issue do that?  

   The bad thing to do is use blame in place of interpretation — as in blaming voters for not understanding. Voters aren’t stupid. And if some election results seem unimaginable, it probably should just serve as a reminder that the broad base of democracy works like a pendulum’s swing ... the good sense of it might not be apparent for a long time.

   So I don’t get why some pro-18-80 folks were saying that the voters mistakenly voted “no” because of the wording of the measure. The measure, very simply, asked you to vote “yes” if you wanted county commissioners to discontinue involvement in the KBRA; and asked you to vote “no” if you did not want them to discontinue involvement. (Maybe it didn’t help to muddy the issue by having signs and ads out there telling them that a “yes” vote would “save our dams,” since it really wasn’t about dams ... but I think voters easily saw through all that.)

   It sure looks as if people were doing some thinking. It was a close contest. And the under-vote (the number of people who didn’t participate in that particular part of the ballot by not voting on it) was very low compared to other contests. If under-votes represent the number of people who just can’t decide or don’t know enough about a candidate or issue to feel justified in voting, then:

   • 7,869 voters didn’t know what to think of the retention of local Circuit Court Judge Dan Bunch, the sole candidate listed in that race (15,236 did vote   for him and 196 voted a write-in).

   • 5,552 voters didn’t know whether to vote for County Clerk Linda Smith or a write-in candidate (15,340 did vote for her and 2,408 voted for a writein).

   • Many more than 9,000 voters didn’t know why they should vote for the people in any of the five single-candidate choices for Klamath Soil and Water Conservation board.

   • But the under-votes were fairly low for all the state and local measures. Only 1,895 participants didn’t know why they should or how they should vote in the Measure 72 contest to change the state’s borrowing limit exemption.

   And only 1,123 voters didn’t vote on the 18-80 proposal. They weren’t being silly or uninformed or faked out by the wording. They had decided.

   Thumbs Up: For people willing to work past the campaigns on issues involved with 18-80 (the many facets of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, including tribal land, power rates, surcharges, federal funding, irrigation rights, environmental concerns, dam removal and so much more).  

   KBRA supporters would probably be smart to keep their sleeves rolled up, maybe even accelerate work to build understanding and acceptance of their proposals throughout the entire Basin community — city and country folk alike. Why? It might have been a pleasant surprise, from their point of view, to have won, but it certainly wasn’t by a mandate. And public perception matters a whole lot.

   Also, you can bet that the anti-KBRA folks won’t run off. They, most likely, will plan another ballot measure. They might ask for a straight up-or-down advisory on dam removal. Maybe it will be more comprehensive than that. (And it’s not evil of them to do that, by the way, because the KBRA is monumental; it should take some years of debate and some votes and some back and forth before it’s finalized.)

   But here’s another also: It seems like sooner or later it would make good sense for KBRA opponents to start lobbying for changes and participation, rather than launching torpedoes. Because I don’t think the KBRA proponents are turning tail, either.