The La Plata County Clerk and Recorder’s office mailed 32,911 ballots for this fall’s coordinated election at roughly noon Tuesday. They should be in voters’ hands within a day or two. And with that, county voters will begin to complete the process of deciding a number of important questions that will affect their communities.
It is a process that works well and limiting the election to all mail-in saves taxpayer money. But to work as intended, the system also requires the voters to sort through complex questions, make informed decisions and take their role in our democracy seriously.
If experience is any guide, a large number of those ballots will be immediately opened, marked and mailed back. A smaller number will be returned over the next week or two, while another large number will be returned just prior to when they are due, 7 p.m. on Nov. 4.
That pattern complicates campaigning, advertising and editorial endorsements, but it affords the voters who have not yet done so the flexibility to reflect, read the actual ballot language and vote at a time that meets their needs. And so long as the ballot is not lost or forgotten, the system works well.
It needs to. What is before the voters lacks the drama or conflict of much of what goes on in Washington, but it is every bit as important – and perhaps more so. Elections like this fall’s represent retail government, the small, day-to-day choices that together make up American life and that over time forge a place’s identity.
Six different versions of the ballot go out. All contain the statewide Proposition BB and the countywide Question 1A. All also include school board elections for the appropriate districts. Three people (one unopposed) are running for two seats in Durango. Four candidates are vying for three seats in Bayfield, and Ignacio has eight people competing for three seat.
Voters in Bayfield also face a sales tax to be applied to roads. And residents of unincorporated areas of the county, as well as residents of Durango, Bayfield and Ignacio, will each be asked to allow their respective county and municipal governments to reestablish the right to provide Internet and cable services.
There is a lot going on there. Consider just three:
Proposition BB would allow the state to keep tax money from marijuana sales that would otherwise have to be returned to the taxpayers because of a technicality. Statewide voters approved the idea of taxing marijuana when they voted to legalize it. Those same voters later approved the specific pot tax now in effect.
County Question 1A is a countywide property tax increase to pay for the roads and bridges repairs the declining revenue from the gas industry no longer covers. It would be the first property tax increase in at least 25 years (maybe more).
City of Durango Question 2B would allow the city to borrow money to finance rebuilding the city’s sewer plant. That it is the most controversial issue on the ballot does nothing to diminish its importance.
Looked at overall, local voters have a lot to decide. They should take some time to study the ballot and understand the issue fully. And they should want to, it is the quality of their lives and their children’s they are deciding.
