Politics seem to be dominating headlines both at the national and local level. This is probably one of the most exciting times in American politics in recent years regardless of your party affiliation. Any U.S. election is complex and unpredictable to a certain degree, but experts agree the presidential race has provided us with an endless amount of surprises. Even though California’s presidential primary is a couple of months away, things got heated in our neck of the woods in the wake of Measure A’s defeat.
Carlsbad residents voted no to the proposed Agua Hedionda South Shore Specific Plan by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. The plan included an area of 203 acres east of I-5 and north of Cannon Road that aimed to build an upscale shopping mall on 27 acres while l eaving the remaining 176 acres for public trails, agriculture, and habitat preservation. The developer, Caruso Affiliated, spent nearly $11 million in television ads and other advertising materials in the months leading up to the Feb. 23 election.
Special elections typically have a low voter turnout. Experts list several reasons including voter fatigue, the type of election, or the topic isn’t as interesting as a gubernatorial election or a presidential race. If there’s any level of apathy, that was certainly not the case in Carlsbad. Early predictions pointed to a victory for proponents of Measure A. However, that quickly changed once the ballot counting started. Measure A brought a whopping 62.38 percent voter turnout. According to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, there is only one other special election that the organization has identified with a higher record of voter turnout. The 2003 statewide election to recall the then Governor Gray Davis generated a 67 percent voter turnout.
Measure A reaffirmed the value of the democratic process. It was the people’s right to vote and participation that ultimately determined the outcome.
“People in Carlsbad are engaged in their community. The topic of discussion galvanized the entire community to get out and vote. The gubernatorial general election in 2014 was at 45 percent voter turnout in the county. These numbers rival the gubernatorial general election,” said Michael Vu from the San Diego County Registrar of Voters. “The topic at hand, the awareness of citizens to get out and vote were certainly there. All the ingredients to have a good turnout were there and happened in this special election.”
One of the biggest lessons learned for other people is that they can now look at Carlsbad as an example of how to get people engaged.
“Let’s keep the momentum going, not only in Carlsbad, but statewide to remind ourselves we need to be informed on what’s going on,” said Ted Owen, president and CEO of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a really good time to promote voter registration at your business, and to make sure your employees have time to get to their polling location on Election Day, tell your employees about local issues that affect your business – most likely it will affect them too! – and endorse candidates that support your company’s values and promote small business enterprise.”
A small part with big implications
According to The Pew Research Center, the U.S. has the fourth-lowest voter turnout rate among democratic nations in the world. That’s a pretty unfortunate statistic. We owe it to ourselves to change that. Voting is equally important to anyone who has a stake in policy decisions whether those decisions are made in Carlsbad, Sacramento or Washington.
“There’s a mindset that I think many citizens have about voting, and they need to overcome it – the view that theirs is only one vote, and that one vote won’t change anything. And in one sense that is correct. No election is going to hinge on any one particular vote. However, elections do hinge on the accumulation of all those ‘just one votes,’” said Stephen Nichols, associate professor and political science department chair at California State University San Marcos. “When I vote, I don’t do so thinking that my vote is going to determine anything — I just want to do my very small part in what is a collective, big picture effort to shape public policy.”
As we near the presidential primary on June 7 and our municipal election on November 8, let’s not lose sight of the healthy civic engagement happening in our community. Embrace your civic duty, volunteer and become a poll worker. The San Diego Registrar of Voters needs to recruit over 6,000 poll workers for the upcoming primary election.
“2016 has been a big year for us. We have shown greater civic engagement in terms of going to the polls than our sister counties to the east of us,” said Vu. “I would hope that the June election is equal if not better in terms of turnout than what occurred in Carlsbad.”