A clandestine election

Do you know what your Secretary of State will be doing this Saturday? If you answered the semi-rhetorical question with “monitoring an election,” then you get a cookie. Saturday is an election day in Louisiana, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find many people in East Baton Rouge Parish who are aware of that fact. There are only two items on the ballot and they’re both property tax renewals related to the East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBRPSS): a 6.5 mills tax for operations and a 7.19 mills tax for maintaining and improving salaries and benefits for public school employees.

Given that elections held off-cycle (read: during crawfish season rather than football season) tend to have lower turnouts and are generally successful, I like to call them clandestine elections. For those not familiar with the term, a clandestine operation is one that is designed to conceal that a certain activity has occurred (e.g. a spy stealing war plans). No one is aware that anything happened, but the results impact them all the same.

The lead-up to this particular clandestine election has been very quiet. The School Board certainly hasn’t actively campaigned for voters to remember to vote. If you consider the nature of how elections work, it probably makes more sense for them to not do so. Internally, I imagine EBRPSS employees, their families, and friends are all aware of the election and are interested in turning out to vote. As long as no vocal opposition appears (and with two days left, it’s unlikely) they should be home free. If tax opponents aren’t aware of the upcoming election, shame on them. Considering the calls for break-away districts and general dissatisfaction with EBRPSS, you would think there would be a lot more opposition.

…and it’s not like these are minor taxes. For a taxpayer in the City of Baton Rouge, these two taxes represent about 10% of your total property tax bill. For EBRPSS, these are the first and third largest EBRPSS property taxes by millage amounts. Taken together, they are projected to bring in roughly 20% of the total revenue EBRPSS expects to collect in 2013 (approximately $42,500,000 of $225,000,000, check the budget). That’s huge! I’m pretty sure most of you would be sweating a single event that could cut 20% of your pay if it didn’t work out in your favor.

While EBRPSS seems a bit blasé about the successful passage of the renewals, it’s really just a function of how these clandestine elections work. Low turnout = easier for the most active interest to achieve their desired outcome.

So long story short, get out and vote Saturday. Whether you are for the renewals or against them, you should be doing your civic duty and registering your opinion at the ballot box. If you don’t know where you’re registered or want to read the full text of the ballot items, check out the Secretary of State’s Geaux Vote website. I’m predicting this is going to be a shockingly low voter turnout and the tax will win easily, albeit less so than in past years.