Conservation District Elections

An exercise in democracy? Not on your life...

This is the time of year that Conservation District Managers and Directors shudder over. It's that recurring nightmare called "Annual Supervisor Elections."

In case you'd never heard, Conservation District elections in Washington State are somewhat of a joke. The mighty little District is forced by Washington State law to either hold it's own elections, beg for it's County Auditor's assistance, or pay a consultant to do it for them. None of these three options result in truly democratic, free or fair elections for the District and its constituents.

Districts do their best, and despite the glaring flaws in the system, many good people are advanced to positions of authority via these elections, the position of Board Supervisor. At my own District we follow the "by-mail" guidelines passed down via the Washington State Conservation Commission. In my opinion the "by-mail" guidelines represent a valiant attempt to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, by making it easier for voters to participate.

According to the "by-mail" system voters must request a ballot from the District, which is then mailed to them in standard absentee fashion. Voters are qualified against the County Auditor's registered voter records, and the qualified votes are counted. In our current election cycle we sent out 1,700 ballots to people who requested them, and received nearly 650 back by our voting deadline. About 150 of these are provisional due to problems such as not matching with the Auditors voter database, or residency requirements. I will spend the next two weeks pretending to be an elections official and doing my best to qualify every one of these provisional ballots.

What's wrong with that you ask? Well for starters, I was hired to raise money for our little District, to manage its personnel and projects, and to maintain correct contractual arrangements with our partners. To date this election cycle I've invested approximately 120 hours into this task, with at least that many to go before the paperwork is completed and the new Supervisor is seated. In taxpayer terms that equals about $16,000 worth of funding that is invested in this flawed process right up front.

Let's not talk about the work that didn't get done while I was trying to dress up this incredibly antiquated and (in my mind) indefensible process. I'm pretty steamed about it this time of year, in case you couldn't tell.

Include now our contractual costs for the independant firm who handles our elections, envelopes, paper, printing, postage, and you've added another $5,000 to $6,000 to the total.

If $20,000 seems a high cost for an election process that generates 650 votes in a county where the group of potential voters is over 300,000, you're right. And reader, two intrepid candidates and I worked our tails off to get those 650 votes.

Clearly our elections belong on the general ballot along with all other elections of Washington State officials. There are many excuses as to why they're not there already. These excuses include;

"But the general ballot will cost too much,"

"It will be too much of a burden for candidates for a volunteer position to run countywide,"

"On the general ballot no farmers will run for these offices,"

... and my personal favorite...

"If we go on the general ballot we'll attract people to our board positions who have no knowledge of or love for the District and the people it serves."

None of these excuses survives the light of day when you look at the current system critically. I can solve all of these issues with one plan. For lack of a better name, I'll call it the "Monty Plan for Washington State Conservation District Elections." It's the post directly below this one, read it if you like.

I've spent seven years quietly doing my best to make a failed system work. It's time to bring this issue to the light of day and solve it once and for all. I encourage anyone who reads this and cares about the issue to contact their local legislators and ask "what's up with these Conservation District elections? Why can't we fix that?"

You might even send them a copy of the Monty Plan, or at least the weblink. Here it is for your lobbying convenience:

http://montysview.blogspot.com/2008/04/monty-plan-for-conservation-district.html