Tag Archives: special election

Special election report

The special election for the new buildings at the college LCCC 25 million dollars was voted into existence. This was about half of the projected cost for the project. Next year they will have to go to the state legislature to ask for the other half [another 25 million dollars] both of which raises taxes.

According to after election reports only 24% of the registered voters turned out for this single topic election. Of that amount 40% voted against the project. 60% voted for the raised taxes. What that comes out to is that only about 14% of he registered voters have raised everyone’s taxes.

As an aside there are a lot of property owners here who are not registered to vote locally. We have a military base in town. Many of the active duty people are local and yet maintain their vote ‘back home’ which makes no real sense to me as when you do that, you can not effect your current property taxes.

In essence be involved and engaged where ever you live or don’t urinate and bemoan the current events.

Special elections

Special election coming up Tuesday November 5th 2013 Wyoming

Why have something set up for a special election instead of during a ‘normal’ general election time? Well I can think of several reasons. As an example, if a currently seated politician dies in office there has to be a mechanism in place to put someone else into that office.  Another example would be if they get caught doing something wrong and are sent to prison, they will have to be replaced. Some times a temporary replacement can be appointed to either finish out the term or to fill in until a special election can be arranged. These are very valid reasons to have a special election.

Some of the logistics of special elections include the cost to tax payers to host the special election. It costs about as much to vote on one or two things as it does for 20 things. You still have to fully man all the voting precincts and who ever counts the ballets. The voting machines cost about the same to set up and then there are the absentee votes or ‘early’ voting. Another issue with special elections is the commonly known fact that the voter turnout for special elections tends to be very light compared with general elections. Mostly the few people that actually vote during a special election are either VERY for the issue that is being voted on OR VERY against the item being voted on.

Consider now the preplanning that is required for ANY building project. You have to know the plot of land that you want to build on. The site has to be surveyed and the architects have to draw up the building plans to code and make the materials list for the stuff needed to complete the project and make a guesstimate as to the time needed to complete the building project. All of that takes time and money & is not something that is done on the spur of the moment. It can take from several months for a smaller government building project to a year or more for a larger building project. Also it is not common knowledge, but enrollment at the college is reportedly, actually down this year and with the current economy will probably be down for at least the next several years.

Depending upon your point of view, you may want to have a special election for a pet project such as raising taxes to pay for expanding the local college buildings because of the expected low voter turn out. Special elections are typically used in this fashion to slip in a pet project figuratively under the citizens noses in my opinion.

So, from my point of view, some things do need to have a special election as stated above, however some things just should not be allowed in a special election such as the Laramie County Community College expansion.

Of course everyone should study out the issues and ponder what their proper course of action is before they vote – and everyone should let their voices be heard regardless of what side of the issue they are on.

Had this appeared during a normal general election I may well be in favor of it. BUT, I think that given, that it is being presented in what I consider a back door and underhanded fashion I will be voting against it.

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I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

Thx