In his letter “Few Votes Decide for the Many” (The Columbian, Feb. 15), Greg Flakus, in talking about the Ridgefield bond measure, suggests that school bond levies should be required to have a certain number of ballots cast in order for the election to be valid. So a minority of voters would then have two ways of defeating an election: one by voting 40.001 percent against (since a 60 percent majority is required to pass), or by just not showing up to vote. This is interesting, since a minority of voters has already selected our president, our U.S. Senate, and our local U.S. representative, who received just 48.88 percent of the votes in Clark County, but won because of our gerrymandered district.
The minority party (Republican) is selecting their own federal judges, and seems to be working to create more advantages for the minority of voters by reducing polling places and times and purging the voting rolls of ethnic minorities. What else do they want? Shall we just eliminate voting all together? This would save money. But our Pledge of Allegiance includes the words: “America, And To The Republic For Which It Stands.” Are we really a republic? It sounds to me that having the minority decide elections makes us more like a dictatorship.
