Not many years ago, if you were faced with a cluster of unacceptable clowns on your ballot, you could write a name in and cast a protest vote. Hell, I guess you still can – the thing is, your write-in protest vote won’t be counted or reported. With the elimination of subsection 7 last year, the last remaining method of voting against an unopposed, unacceptable candidate was taken away.
Time was when we laughed about unopposed Soviet candidates being elected with no votes for the opponent. We’re at that same stage now. When the next primary comes out, we’ll be faced with a bunch of zero choice positions.
P.J. O’Rourke wrote “Don’t Vote – It Only Encourages the Bastards.” He may have been Prescient. Our current system mandates that, in order to run for office, you must pay filing fees based on this schedule:
From How to run for office in Montana – Ballotpedia
| Filing fees | |
| Office sought | How the fee is determined |
| For offices earning an annual salary of $2,500 or less and members of the state legislature | $15 |
| For offices (except county-level) earning an annual salary of more than $2,500 | 1% of salary |
| For offices in which compensation is paid in fees | $10 |
By keeping the filing fee at $15 for state legislature, they – it’s more polite than O’Rourke’s tag (The Bastards) state representatives and senators don’t have to face the fact that our filing fees keep a lot of people out of the running.
Montana County Elected Official Salary Survey shows the salaries of elected officials in most Montana counties. It’s a year old, but I don’t have any better source to cover the state. In Lincoln County, you can get the current salaries here.
Probably the most interest is for the County Commissioner at $64,232.94 – so the 1% filing fee is a bit higher than $642. It’s the same for sheriff – and the rest of the full-time elected positions are $62,232.94. (This is the base salary, commissioners and sheriff get $2,000 more.
We could go on to elected state positions – but that’s for a future issue.
It’s expensive just to file for these positions. Write-in votes are no longer counted . . . so it is no longer possible to vote against a single candidate that you find unacceptable. If you vote for him or her, it only encourages the bastards. Worse, it discourages the folks who might run against them.
Since the bastards have made it impossible to vote against an unopposed and unacceptable candidate, they have made voting less effective. Our elections are essentially the same as the Soviet system we once mocked. Still, the bastards have left us an alternative, and it’s a simple exercise in Irish democracy:
If a candidate is unopposed, don’t mark that part of the ballot. The unopposed candidate is going to win the election – so make him or her or it win with the smallest number of votes possible. It won’t be possible to make the courthouse clique candidates win with single digit numbers – I’ll get into the socially constructed reality of the courthouse and the annex later – but it would be a beautiful protest if the county treasurer or clerk won re-election with less than half of the ballots cast. That would encourage the opposition.
P.J. O’Rourke was right. They have screwed with the elections so much that voting can only Encourage the Bastards. He didn’t take it far enough – if enough of us leave the boxes next to the unopposed candidates unfilled, it will encourage opponents. The first step in getting the vote back is remembering P.J. – Don’t Vote – It Only Encourages the Bastards. But don’t forget to cast your ballot!
Trego's Mountain Ear 