On Voting 

Editor:

I appreciate the vehemence with which George Clark bemoans what he calls the "biggest threat to democracy" — low turnout rates in mid-term elections. (Mailbox, March 21.) I mean, it sure sounds bad, what with "shuttered storefronts," a "collapsed demand for production" and a "collapsing economy," etc.  But I'm confused; if the 30 percent participation rate in the latest election is "a figure unchanged since" 1979, it sounds like we've limped along for 45 years at least without a final collapse. (Nice to see a shout out to the Sage of Plains by the way; in my book the Gentleman Peanut Farmer doesn't get his due as a doomsayer.)

I also don't get how low voter participation rates lead to "predatory businesses turning the poor into the destitute," or make it more expensive to put grampa in the old folks home. (I can say that, I'm old.) Since about 40 percent of the electorate appears to be made up of cretins and/or creeps who think investing a cretinous creep with absolute power will make things "great" again, and who almost certainly support everything the GOP has done over the years to make the rich richer and the non-rich sorry they were born, maybe it's best we don't have more people voting. After all, a higher percentage of the eligible electorate voted in the presidential race in 2016 than in 2012, and I can't say the result was an improvement.

Bill Hassler, McKinleyville

Editor:

The turnout for the recent primary election was 26 percent for Humboldt County and 27 percent statewide.

Untold thousands of people have given their lives to preserve our democracy and right to vote, and yet 75 percent of voters were too busy or did not bother to exercise that right.

The next election will be the most important one in our lifetime. It will determine whether we will continue to live in a democracy or live under authoritarian rule.

Those of you who didn't take the time to vote or thought your vote wouldn't count have no one to blame but yourselves for the election outcomes and have lost your right to criticize.

Scott Baker, McKinleyville