Last week some area voters had the opportunity once again to exercise a freedom that too many people seem to overlook and just take for granted.
They were the General Election school board races in three area districts. They included Dale, McLoud and the Perkins-Tryon school districts.
First, congratulations to those who won. Next, those who didn’t win should also be commended for stepping up and having the willingness to run for office.
It’s a shame, though, so few people decided to exercise their right to vote.
In Oklahoma, the opportunity to vote is made so easy.
People have options of how they vote. They can request a ballot be sent to them and they can vote by mail.
Or, they can choose to vote early by going to their county election board and casting their ballots on Thursday or Friday prior to Election Day which is the following Tuesday.
If there is a federal election also involved, like U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate or Presidential race, the early voting is also held on Saturday in addition to the Thursday and Friday prior to Election Day.
Then, of course, some prefer to go and cast their vote on Election Day.
I looked back and checked to see how many total votes were cast in each of the three school board elections last week.
At Dale, there were 267 votes cast. At McLoud, an even much larger school district, only 210 were cast.
In the Perkins-Tryon school election, again a larger district like McLoud, 666 total votes were cast.
In looking back at a McLoud bond issue that included two propositions, that voters rejected in 2020, that special election drew three times more voters to the polls than did last week’s school election. There were 701 total votes cast two years ago on the bond propositions.
What’s sad about all of this is that voters have such apathy when it comes to exercise their right to vote and to choosing the people whose responsibility it is to oversee the school district.
A solution to low voter turnout in these annual school elections might be to set them at the same time as county, state and federal primary elections.
Voters seem to be more interested in these primary and general elections than they are school elections so setting them to coincide might get more people in looking at who all is running for their school boards.
It might be worth a try anyway.