The Price of Apathy in the School Board Election
A surprise victory for J. A. Johnson over Rod Sprague reveals that local civic engagement hangs on the turnout of supporters.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
J. A. Johnson emerged a winner by two votes over Rod Sprague for school director at the election last Saturday. The result was a surprise to many, as most people figured Sprague an easy winner, and for that reason several of his friends did not get out and vote. As the law does not permit the election board to count anything but ballots, the final result—Johnson, 84 and Sprague, 82—will stand. The lesson was needed and salutary: if those who had promised to be true had proved to be true in a pinch, the result would have been reversed. It wasn't the votes that were cast, but the voting left undone, that brought that feeling of “gone-ness” at the setting of the sun.
“It wasn't the votes that were cast, dear, but the voting left undone, that brought that feeling of “gone-ness,” at the setting of the sun.”
Election outcomes frequently hinge on the 'voter complacency' effect, a phenomenon that has remained constant in local Washington school board races for over a century. The editorializing in this piece shows how early 20th-century journalists used the local paper to publicly shame the unengaged.
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