By Greg Sarber
Scott Pressler, a Republican political activist and specialist in voter outreach, has made an ominous warning about voter apathy in the local and state elections this year. He is concerned that conservative voters will not be motivated after the big turnout for President Trump last November and will fail to show up at the polls. Historic voting patterns in Alaska tend to validate his concerns.
Except for the Mat-Su Borough, most communities in our state will conduct a joint city and borough election tomorrow. I live in Homer, and like most other towns in this state, presidential elections attract a large turnout. Unfortunately, off-cycle elections like tomorrow’s borough and city elections are typically very low-turnout affairs.
Table 1
You can see Homer’s participation in presidential elections illustrated in Table 1. The city voter turnout is typically in the high 60% range, and often exceeds the national average. In the last three elections, the Republican candidate won by large majorities of 15-20%. We often hear that Homer is a liberal town, but not when it counts in presidential elections.
Table 2
The same is not true for local elections, where Homer has a very low participation rate. The average voter turnout for the last four city and borough elections was an anemic 19.77%, and in all of these city council elections except one, the more liberal candidate won. What’s worse, the winning margin of victory was only 285 votes! The liberals barely squeak out a victory. If conservatives had turned out in the same numbers they do for presidential elections, it would have assured a conservative majority on our city council. However, in these off-cycle local elections, it seems like the Republicans stay home, gifting victory to the liberals.
While not having the excitement of a gubernatorial election, tomorrow’s local elections here in Alaska are still important. One example is the sales tax we all pay. The 7.85% sales tax residents in Homer pay on all purchases is a burden placed on us by the city and borough governments. Those same officials also decide the amount of property taxes levied against us. When you add these two forms of taxation together, the annual amount each resident pays runs into the thousands of dollars. It is the local officials we elect tomorrow who will determine whether our tax burden will go up or down, and if the tax revenue is used wisely.
Mr. Pressler has focused his turnout efforts on the larger states holding elections for major statewide offices. He knows the Republicans are the low-propensity party. Historically, they vote in presidential election years, but fewer of them vote in off-cycle elections. Their biggest hurdle will be getting every person who voted for Donald Trump in the last three elections to turn up and support local conservative candidates.
Alaska doesn’t have a voter activist like Scott Pressler, but we do have the conservative readers of this site. You can make sure you vote and get the word out to others who might have forgotten there is an election tomorrow. Absentee voting in person is available in most communities, so you can vote today if that fits your schedule best. If you are someone who likes to go to the polling place and vote on election day, please do so tomorrow, and take a friend with you.
If you are unsure of the candidates and issues, I have prepared a voter guide for conservative voters in Homer. There are excellent conservative candidates and important issues on the ballot in every community and borough in Alaska. Please familiarize yourself and make your choices known.
The apathy that Scott Pressler is worried about doesn’t have to happen. Conservatives can win in local elections. All it takes is for a motivated group of individuals to show up tomorrow. Please get out and vote.
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