The Columbian, in a June 10 editorial “Muddy waters of ‘very clear’: The people spoke on fireworks, but county commissioners slow to act,” supporting a ban on fireworks, makes a basic error, which shows why many of us find advisory votes useless. It said that “60.3 of the electorate” has spoken, and their will should be honored. “Electorate” is defined in the dictionary as “the people who can vote in an election,” and the editorial ignores the fact that the actual registered voter turnout was only 37 percent for that odd-year election in November. Sixty percent of 37 percent is about 22 percent. So the commissioners are supposed to ban fireworks because they know 22 percent of the voters oppose them? With voter turnout so low, advisory votes are meaningless, especially since they only tend to bring out the fanatics anyway. Many people do not have strong feelings about fireworks either way.
Anyway, it is false to imply that we know that 60 percent of the electorate are against fireworks. All that is certain is that about a quarter of them are. Hence the problem with advisory votes.
Sam Siciliano
Vancouver
