A word about voting

Sometimes it feels like we have about 12 strong opinions and rotate through editorials on these topics.

In the issue before an election we mostly use this space — one of the best read in the paper — to spur people to vote. That’s the idea anyway.

In the issue following each election, we roll a familiar saw decrying low voter participation in U.S. elections. This drumbeat should sound familiar.

As we are regrettably accustomed to pointing out, participation in local elections is usually a mere fraction of eligible and registered voters. The Oct. 1 election drew a 20 percent turnout in Wasilla. We wonder why the majority of people who live here don’t even register to vote.

But how does Wasilla’s 20 percent stack up to other elections? Twenty percent is actually on the low end. For odd years since 2001, 2005 saw the highest turnout with 27.4 percent.

But borough-wide, even a lower percentage of voters typically participate.

In the Mat-Su Borough as a whole, only 16.4 percent of registered voters cast a ballot Tuesday. Turnouts seemed to be higher in areas where the residents were picking a new assemblyman. But they ranged from 10 percent in Trapper Creek to nearly 30 percent for the Lazy Mountain area.

We repeat our “get out the vote” mantra with passion and frequency because we are convinced that democracy works best when people participate.

It’s time to move past rhetoric and examine what has worked in other states and model their best voting practices.

Consider our friends in Oregon. Elections there are conducted entirely by mail and achieve around 80 percent participation from registered voters.

We see few obstacles to following Oregon’s lead, and we see potential here to reduce the cost of elections while increasing voter turnout.

Another promising solution is actually already in place in Alaska, to a degree. Utility board elections won the right a few years back to conduct online balloting.

We know raising the possibility of casting votes online brings up all kinds of worries about the integrity and security of elections. While folks may be OK voting for co-op board members online, they have thus far seemed unwilling to trust computers with broader election results.

We think the same sorts of secure systems that allow banking, filing of taxes and applications for the Permanent Fund Dividend to be done online also could be used to protect voting data.

There is more that we can learn from the way other states run elections. For example, perhaps Alaska can find a way to combine its state, local and federal elections so they occur at the same time and location.

But no matter how easy and secure these changes might make Alaska’s elections, ultimately the onus rests with voters. This is what our military fights to protect, our right to vote. Do not surrender these blood-stained rights by failing to honor your responsibility on Election Day.