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We kept hitting our computer’s refresh button over and over Tuesday night, waiting for all 180 Luzerne County precincts to report their results and be posted on the election bureau website.
Somehow, we figured, the number would improve after all the ballots were tallied.
Sadly, we were wrong.
The number we’re talking about — voter turnout — did not even manage to crack 20 percent.
We’re just glad our Founding Fathers are no longer around to see this sorry display of democracy in action.
The final tally, according to as-of-yet unofficial county numbers: 40,729 ballots cast of a possible 205,304. That comes to a turnout of just 19.84 percent.
Turnouts are typically much lower in years when there is not a headliner contest, such as a presidential election. This is especially true in those odd years when there are also no congressional races to decide.
But what happened this week was particularly bad.
In 2015 — another non-presidential year — primary turnout in Luzerne County was a tad better: 21.4 percent, an election archive shows.
Contrast that to last year’s primary, which gave party loyalists a chance to pick a president: 41.05 percent.
The 2016 results show roughly double the amount of people voted than on Tuesday.
Still, when it’s an achievement for turnout to exceed 40 percent, that’s saying something about the electorate.
There have been many potential remedies bandied about over the years on how to boost poll numbers.
One we typically hear is making it mandatory — that means you have to do it or you will be penalized — to show up to mark a ballot.
Our friends Down Under in Australia routinely post ridiculously high turnouts due to that nation’s nearly century-old compulsory voting requirement.
We found a story from last summer on a New Zealand news site lamenting the fact Australia had just posted its lowest turnout since 1925.
What qualifies as a “low” turnout in Land of Vegemite Sandwiches, you might ask?
Well, in last year’s House and Senate races, still more than 90 percent of those eligible took part in selecting their representatives.
That’s right, more than 90 percent turnout.
So, a compulsory requirement seems to do the trick when it comes to getting out the vote.
Still, as any libertarian would surely tell you, it seems downright un-American to force people to vote, even though doing so would give them a say in their government.
In our estimation, President Ronald Reagan touched on a potential cure for an indifferent democracy during his long-forgotten farewell address in January 1989.
Call us corny if you would like, but Old Dutch’s words — while not directly referencing the civic duty to vote — certainly got at the crux of the problem in a powerful way and how to fix it.
Here’s some of what Reagan said on that cold night almost 30 years ago as he said goodbye to the Oval Office:
“An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? … . Let’s start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.
“… And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ‘em know and nail ‘em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.”
So if you’re under 18 and your parents didn’t vote Tuesday, ask them why — “nail ‘em on it” as Reagan said.
And if you’re over 18 and didn’t vote or aren’t even registered, we would ask you to think about all those who made the ultimate sacrifice on lands far away to give you the right to take part in one of mankind’s greatest inventions: democracy.
— Times Leader