Tulsa World: Deer Creek's lesson: Tyranny of the minority

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Deer Creek's lesson: Tyranny of the minority
The tyranny of the minority

By JANET PEARSON Associate Editor
Published: 11/8/2009 2:25 AM
Last Modified: 11/8/2009 4:16 AM

Ordinarily, a school bond election in an Oklahoma City suburb would not be of much interest to residents around here. For that matter, a Tulsa school bond election wouldn't interest a lot of residents around here.

But the Oct. 13 Deer Creek School District bond election was so remarkable in the eyes of Oklahoma County Assessor Leonard Sullivan he issued a press release about it.

"Congratulations to the citizens of the Deer Creek School District for the passage of $139 million in bonds to build new schools which improves their community. The passage of bonds to support the fast growing district is a sure sign of a community ready to commit to continued growth and build for a brighter future," said Sullivan's statement.

No doubt Deer Creek is poised for a bright future, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to quibble with Sullivan's conclusion that the vote was a "sure sign" of anything. Here's why, in Sullivan's own words:

"Sadly the voter turnout was rather slim. The Deer Creek School District has approximately 8,000 voters. A little more than 700 people voted for the proposition or approximately 80 percent of those casting a vote. This means approximately 10 percent of the registered voters cast a ballot."

Let's be real: A voter turnout of 10 percent isn't exactly an indication of unbridled enthusiasm for schools or anything else.

There could be lots of reasons for the low turnout. Maybe the weather was bad. Or maybe school leaders ran a low-key campaign in an effort to keep the no vote away.

Or maybe — and this is the most likely possibility — most voters just didn't care enough to go vote.

Based on the rounded-off figure of 700 yes votes, Sullivan calculated that each vote was worth about $198,570 in debt. He also estimated that Oklahoma Countians living in the school district will pay about $17,000 each for the new schools and improvements contained in the package.

His calculations are off a bit — let's hope he's more careful when he figures individual tax bills — because he used rounded-off figures and he also didn't factor in the Deer Creek district voters in two neighboring counties, Logan and Canadian. But his point is right on the money: Only about 10 percent of the voters districtwide made a decision that will result in tens of millions in debt for only about 10,000 people.

All told, there are 10,170 registered voters in the Deer Creek School District. All told, only 1,010 of them voted on Oct. 13 in all three counties — a turnout of almost exactly 10 percent. In Oklahoma County, 889 of 8,438 voters went to the polls; in Logan County, 121 of 1,724 voted. None of the nine voters registered in Canadian County bothered to vote.

Of course, school bond elections produce notoriously low voter turnouts. But the sad fact is other local elections don't do all that much better.

On Tuesday, Tulsans will have the opportunity — and the duty — to elect a new mayor as well as make choices in the city auditor's race and four City Council races.

Could decisions made Tuesday by a small minority have far-reaching implications for all Tulsans in years to come? You bet they will.

If turnout is similar to contests of the recent past, then a fairly small minority of voters will decide who the next officeholders will be. In April 2006, when Mayor Kathy Taylor defeated incumbent Bill LaFortune, 35 percent of the city's nearly 220,000 registered voters cast ballots in the mayor's race.

Four years earlier, only 29 percent of registered voters voted in the mayoral election.

The 77,351 ballots cast in the Taylor-LaFortune contest left election-watchers breathless. "I wish we'd get this kind of turnout in all of our city elections," said one official.

Imagine that: Only about a third of registered voters show up for the city's most important election and everybody's thrilled. Imagine everyone being thrilled if schoolchildren scored 35 percent on their math tests.

There's no telling right now exactly how Tuesday's decisions will affect Tulsa's future, but we owe it to ourselves to try to make informed decisions. Would a Dewey Bartlett administration be better for the city, or a Tom Adelson administration? Would one be more visionary, more decisive, more action-oriented? Would one be better at improving the city's economy? Would one be better at figuring out how to maximize resources?

Or would independent Mark Perkins be the best choice for charting the city's future in the near term? (Note to disaffected voters: Before casting a protest vote for Perkins, remind yourself that little-known, inexperienced independents rarely get elected around here, so all you'll be doing is helping out one of the major-party candidates.)

The same kinds of questions can be asked in the city auditor's race and in the four Council contests. Which is the best choice in each race, considering all the many expectations the local citizenry has of its elected officials?

Back to Deer Creek: Maybe most of the residents of Deer Creek School District don't mind paying for some major and costly school improvements. But we'll never really know, since most of them didn't speak up.

The fact only 10 percent of them bothered to vote for their local schools makes one wonder how sincere Oklahomans really are when they assert time and again that education is their top priority.

And, we'll have to wonder how serious Tulsans are about their city's future if only about a third of them bother to head to the polls on Tuesday.

Janet Pearson 581-8328
janet.pearson@tulsaworld.com By JANET PEARSON Associate Editor

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RC1936, St. Robert (11/8/2009 7:10:57 AM)

Pearson is absolutely correct. Our nation (not just our small communities) is being run by people not elected by the majority because the majority stayed home. Each and every year it gets worse. So many people are griping about this or that but, when you asked them how they voted, they say they didn't vote at all. I tell them to shut up because they've already had their chance and they elected to stay home. And the nation has now begun to pay for it, in more ways than one. But I can gripe and bellyache for I did vote. And I'm griping and bellyaching something fierce but it does no good. But I voted.

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CycleDog, Owasso (11/8/2009 10:53:30 AM)

How can you justify the idea that 10% of the electorate is an exercise in tyranny? That apathetic 90% majority sat at home watching television. They had the opportunity to vote. They just didn't do it. So it's misleading to state that the 10% who chose to show at the polls were somehow forcing their will on the others. Tyranny implies that one group forces their laws, norms, social patterns, etc, on another unwilling group. This example is a far cry from tyranny, though it's probably much harder to write about the real culprit - apathy - because no one gets excited about apathy.

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