Our View: Kudos for a well-organized election

First, serious kudos to the Luzerne County Republican party leaders — and to their state-level counterparts — for managing such a sweeping win in Tuesday’s election. The red tide was impressive and probably unprecedented, and those who helped oversee such success merit praise.

Second, does this mean the year of voter fraud/election audits is over? We’re betting at the very least, the seemingly perpetual claim that the system is rigged or that the results can’t be trusted will at least suddenly be more subdued if not outright disappear. Funny how winning proves the system works.

Third, to those elected, please remember you serve all people of all party affiliations. Using this sweep to impose a “party over people” approach is almost definitely a path to losing in the future, as the pendulum likely would swing. Save for extremists in both parties, Americans keep proving they want government that functions for everyone.

Fourth, congratulations seem clearly in order for the Luzerne County Election Bureau for a relatively smooth day. Considering all the excess pressure and overblown accusations applied to election officials locally and nationally, early indications are that they did their jobs, and did them well.

Fifth, don’t gloat too much. Total turnout in Luzerne County remained tepid at best, dismal at worst. Of 202,438 registered voters, a very unimpressive 58,759 actually cast ballots, according to unofficial results Wednesday that still didn’t include several precincts where results were delayed. That’s 29% of voters making the decisions for everyone. While the sweep among those who voted was impressive, it is clearly a mistake to believe that when you grab the majority of such a minority, you are not exactly wielding an unassailable mandate.

Which takes us to the last item of interest in a morning-after glimpse at Tuesday’s results: Whither the Democratic Party? What answers can the county Democratic leadership give for such a blowout? Will there be changes?

Remember: While the Democratic edge in voter registration county-wide has been shrinking, it’s still a pretty good edge — As of the latest count, there were 95,199 registered Democrats in the county headed into Tuesday’s election, compared to 81,282 Republicans. Taking only those two numbers, that’s more than enough to have prevented Tuesday’s outcome if the party had its act together.

Of course, the two-party system is no longer as dominant as it used to be. The county also had 25,957 people registered as other or with no affiliation. It’s a bit early to tell with any certainty how a Democratic party with a solid registration edge could lose so badly. Usual suspects would be that either Democrats came out in much lower numbers than Republicans, or that both had roughly the same turnout percentage and the “others” swung the races to the red column. Once the results are official and full, certified data is available we can parse out the answer.

But this much seems clear: Democratic leaders at all levels need to do a serious post-mortem on Tuesday’s results, and make some tough decisions moving forward, potentially including leadership and platform changes. Otherwise at this rate, they could become the afterthought party for a long time.

— Times Leader