Voter Apathy Decided the Washington County District 13 Commission Race
1,014 votes were cast in the August Washington County, TN, District 13 Commission race, which ended in a 507 to 507 tie between incumbent Ken Huffine, a fellow Republican and his Democrat challenger and fellow Veteran Cindy Humphrey. This op-ed really has nothing to do with them or any induvial named herein, but a call for Americans to take more responsibility by educating themselves on the issues and the candidates and voting accordingly. In all honesty, I’ve nearly read more nonsensical opinions on this matter than there were votes cast.
For those who feel the voters should have decided this election and not the Washington County Commission, I should point out the voters had many chances to do that. In fact, they had 2 weeks of early voting, plus the actual Election Day on top of any absentee ballots that could have been requested and sent in, but certainly not enough were. In essence, the registered voters and eligible voters who didn’t register and stayed home decided this race. If you live in district 13 and didn’t vote you had no leg to stand on to say, “the voters should decide,” not the Washington County Commission, after all, you had your opportunities. For those who voted and still didn’t want the commission to decide, you had every opportunity to phone a family member or loved one, after all, just one more vote would have swung this thing either way.
According to the Washington County Election Commission as of 10:33am on September 2nd, district 13 has 5,659 registered voters, which means by those numbers that 17.918+% cast a ballot, while slightly more than 82% of district 13 registered voters stayed home. So, tell me how would sending it to a November runoff have changed voter apathy?
While I agree, the voters should decide every election, and in large part they decided this election by staying at home during July’s early voting and the August General Election. While more voters will turnout in November given, we have a major Gubernatorial election, it will still be a low turnout compared to the number of registered and eligible voters.
No what about’isms need apply! The voters did decide and they decided to stay home instead of exercising their most basic civic duty by voting.
That said, the state allows for a local county commission to decide a tie election in this instance, which I have reservations regarding this, especially given November is just around the corner, but not my point. However, out of principle, if one of the candidates is a sitting member of a county commission, they debatably should have to abstain and allow the rest of the commission to decide, which Commissioner Huffine certainly didn’t, but in reality, it’s no different than voting for oneself in the voting booth in many ways, so that point is essentially moot.
That aside, the writing was on the wall in that the Washington County Commission wasn’t remotely going to send this to a November runoff, which a part of me thinks they should have, then a bigger part of me says voters should actually show up and vote, especially given the length of time permitted to do so. While I admit, the two-party system is broken for many reasons but not my point here. However, the biggest issue here is simply those who aren’t remotely politically active, then there’s the conspiratorial types amongst us who regularly say, “there vote doesn’t count,” or “it’s all rigged,” or something similar, which at this point, at least in Washington County those types should take a powder before ever offering this nugget of wisdom in the near future.
WJHL out of Johnson City reported that the Washington County Democratic Party chair Sylvain Bruni said, “the decision is unfair to the people,” but fails to realize that having 2 plus weeks of voting is more than fair. Bruni went on to tell WJHL that “I think this is an example of politicians making a decision for the people when there was another route possible,” but fails to consider that the voter’s choice was to largely stay at home. While I agree, a runoff wouldn’t have cost any additional money to taxpayers by adding 2 more names to the November ballot, but I disagree with the Democrat Chairs assertion that the Washington County Commission remotely “took away the voters’ voices by casting the vote and selecting Ken Huffine,” no, the 82+% that stayed home did that.
Commissioner Ken Huffine told News Channel 11 after the meeting he believes the commission made the right decision, saying the seat would have been empty until the November election. However, Bruni disagreed and offered other alternatives, which to me were offering up a Band-Aid when a tourniquet was needed, that and less political and voter apathy.
“VOLS: Veterans Offering Lifelong Service”
Todd A. McKinley, BA, MSL
SFC, USA-Ret.
