EDITORIAL: Plenty of reasons to vote in today’s election

The list of reasons to vote in today’s municipal primary elections keeps growing. Unfortunately, voter turnout for city ballots hasn’t followed suit.

Today is municipal primary election day in Southern Nevada. Ballots will decide the makeup of city councils in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City. But precious few city residents take the time to go to the polls in the spring of odd-numbered years. In an average municipal election, a little more than 10 percent of registered voters take the time to show up and perform their civic duty.

Maybe voters are burned out from the scorched-earth campaigns of the previous fall’s elections. Maybe turnout is depressed because about half the valley’s voters, who live in unincorporated areas of Clark County, aren’t eligible to vote in city elections, a reality that discourages large-scale campaign advertising. Maybe it’s because so many Southern Nevada transplants aren’t conditioned to vote in off-year elections.

But voters certainly aren’t staying away because they’re completely satisfied with the way their cities operate. If voters were paying more attention to their city governments, they’d be lining up at their precincts this morning.

In Sunday’s Review-Journal, reporter James DeHaven uncovered a “money hungry” culture at Las Vegas Municipal Court that makes collecting fines a higher priority for marshals than arresting criminals who pose a threat to the public. The “collect-at-all-costs” practices can compel marshals to collect a credit card payment from a violent offender instead of taking him into custody. Such priorities disproportionately harm poor minorities, Mr. DeHaven’s story noted, and compromise public safety. And it gives the city a huge incentive to allow unpaid traffic tickets to accrue significant penalties before moving to collect them.

Do city of Las Vegas voters want their marshals — a small, inefficient force that shouldn’t exist in the first place — to do actual police work or serve as an armed debt collection service? Might that be enough reason to cast a ballot?

What about Henderson’s handling of traffic tickets? A recent city audit determined Henderson police had been illegally voiding traffic citations after they’d been filed with Municipal Court, without the input of supervisors or the city attorney. Might that be enough reason to cast a ballot?

Need more reasons to vote? How about the Las Vegas council’s attempt to build a taxpayer-subsidized soccer stadium? How about limited library hours in North Las Vegas? How about spotty park maintenance, or city responsiveness to squatters and homeless encampments? How about road repairs, fire protection and emergency medical response?

City residents’ tax dollars fund all these services and more. And city councils have final say on the budgets that fund these services. Still don’t want to vote?

A majority of council seats in Las Vegas and Henderson are on today’s ballots: three council races and the mayor’s office in Las Vegas, and three council seats in Henderson. Even in races with more than two people, a candidate can win election outright in the primary by capturing a majority of the votes cast. There might not be a June runoff, so voters should treat today’s primary as if it’s a general election.

City residents have more than enough reasons to vote. Cast an informed ballot.