Happy with 4 percent of your fellow citizens deciding for you?

Just-completed local elections have once again produced very low voter participation.

So let’s ask one more time: Does it matter?

Before exploring the numbers and trying to explain them, allow me to repeat that I believe voting is the first duty of citizenship in a representative democracy like ours.

That doesn’t seem to concern the great majority of those eligible to exercise the freedom we enjoy, and I don’t know why so many have concluded they needn’t show up.

All kinds of excuses are offered, and almost none of them have any validity. Voting these days is incredibly easy. Early voting offers the convenience of picking a day, place and time that best suits your schedule.

I have a good friend who recently celebrated his 50th anniversary of teaching political science at a major university. He has a different view about encouraging people to vote.

His long-standing belief is that citizens who are not informed about our system of government, current issues and the positions of candidates on those issues should not be pressed into voting.

He thinks they present a risk to our democracy, and it’s fine with him if they don’t vote. Maybe his opinion has merit. I know he’s passionate about how he views the question.

Here’s a look at the results of last week’s elections in Arlington and Fort Worth. See what else we might conclude about why so few chose to bother with them:

Arlington elected four members of the City Council. Two incumbents were unopposed, and one faced an opponent thought to be a serious contender who managed 31 percent of the vote. Two new candidates ran for an open seat on the council, with the pre-election favorite drawing more than 73 percent of the votes citywide.

In the school board race, two seats were up for election. One incumbent was unopposed and the second was challenged by a candidate who received less than 24 percent of votes cast in that election.

In those contests, less than 4 percent of registered voters showed up. That may be a new record low turnout for the city and school district.

A bit of insight that might help explain such low voter participation may be found in the recurring annual resident satisfaction survey I wrote about last month. Only 15 percent of responders to that survey thought the city was headed in the wrong direction.

Could it be that when people believe their city is on the right track they don’t see much need to vote? Interestingly, that survey was sent to more than 30,000 residents and produced a 4 percent rate of response.

Meanwhile, Fort Worth voters where considering 11 amendments to their city’s charter, including measures that would reshape the makeup of their governing body.

Again, 4 percent of eligible voters participated in the election, approving nine of the proposals and rejecting the other two.

So, do we conclude that because we are governed by such a low number of voters the rest of the city’s residents are not represented in the results?

Consider this: Local polling that canvasses voters with a history of voting may involve as few as 500 voters. Sometimes less.

The results are accurate within a percentage point or two in revealing the results on election day.

So maybe it takes only a small fraction of all voters to represent what the majority of everyone wants to happen.

If that doesn’t sound right to you and yet you didn’t manage to find the time to cast your own ballot, should you reconsider your decision to opt out?

This story was originally published May 13, 2016 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Happy with 4 percent of your fellow citizens deciding for you?."