The Seven Percent Solution

The California Secretary of State details the election results, as counted and reported by the County Registrar Offices. Over 500 candidates in the June 5^th 2018, election patiently wait as the results are eked out to various news outlets.

However, this election in California has, as of midnight June 5th, no surprises, no upsets, no dramatic upheavals. All despite the best efforts of hard working candidates from “the other party” to reverse the entrenched political machine. Entrenched for over forty years. Two generations have no concept of limited government, of opportunities to learn of self-government, individualism embraced, or even a state operating within a budget.

So, instead of standing up to taxation without representation the masses sat out this election. Only nineteen percent took the time to either put their ballot into the mailbox or show up in person to vote.

There are many who are convinced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, was actually addicted to cocaine. There are those who hold his revelation in the short story “The Sign of Four” of a seven percent solution was an auto-biographical confession of this addiction. So, despite the author and/or his subject exerting their best efforts and extreme intelligence, the slippery well of addiction would take its toll.

And this perfectly defines how we feel too. An election with nineteen percent of registered voters participating is not a solution. It is myopic. It is a path to entrenched encumbrances. It is a symptom of disconnection with responsibilities.

The opportunity to awaken the indifference, to hire representation which reflects more citizens will recur in November. Will California residents continue their dependence on a (nineteen) or like Holmes seven percent solution?