The Other 'Overwhelming' 

Editor:

According to the NCJ's feature coverage, ("After A," March 14): "Humboldt County voters overwhelmingly rejected Measure A ... [with] ... just 27 percent ... in support."

In fact, as of March 14, the overwhelming voice among Humboldt County's estimated 110,903 voting age population was the 82 percent that abstained.

The final post-election report will slightly increase turnout to around 30 percent, a figure unchanged since former U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced it as "the biggest threat to democracy" in his prophetic 1979 energy independence speech. (U.S. officials and media often describe abysmal turnout in other nations as being "illegitimate.")

Awareness is a prerequisite for reform.

There are no laws preventing our recently elected Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes from including actual turnout of our voting age population somewhere in every election report, voter guide, media announcements and website, especially considering that this overwhelming majority is also funding Humboldt elections.

Self-censoring "the biggest threat to democracy" decade after decade is evident in 50 years of government economic austerity measures, divesting, deregulating and privatizing essential public services, herding millions of families into high-interest payment plans to access basic services culminating in today's personal debt crisis from family illnesses, housing, "public" university tuition, transportation and placing a parent into a 24/7 senior care community.

Families' declining purchasing power, used to secure fundamental services, has collapsed demand for production and employment, raising inflation and collapsing the local and national economy.

How many more shuttered storefronts sheltering the homeless and predatory businesses turning the poor into the destitute will it take before we begin electing representatives with the courage to say "no more?"

George Clark, Eureka