The law can be a mind-boggling thing.
From time to time, we hear stories that make our jaws drop as the law gets in the way of something virtually everyone can see as just good old-fashioned common sense. This might bring to mind those zany stories every couple of years about some poor kid wanting to raise money for a good cause by running a curbside lemonade stand, only to have a bureaucratic system tell the kid he needs a $300 business license and proper zoning to do it.
When it comes to Arkansas law regarding the annual school elections, no lemons are involved (aside from the occasional sour candidate), but state law could defi nitely benefit from a dose ofcommon sense.
Take, for example, the recent millage elections in several Washington County districts. Voters in Springdale, Prairie Grove, Greenland and Lincoln rejected the millage request on the ballot.
That, it would seemto the uninitiated, would be a great cause for alarm. What are these school districts going to do with the tax revenue they sought, one might ask.
No worries. All four districts did not seek an increase or a decrease. The requests were only to continue collecting the same taxes as last year. State law, nonetheless, requires voters to be polled.
Prairie Grove’s measure went down a whopping 64 percent to 36 percent. Sounds horrible. That was four votes for it, and seven against it.
In Springdale, it was 11 votes for it, 16 against it.
You get the picture. Nobody was voting, because it didn’t matter one bit. According to Arkansas law, if a millage request is defeated at the polls, the millage rolls back to the rate approved by voters the prior year. And you guessed it, in each of these examples, the rate for the previous year was exactly the same as what was on the ballot in 2011.
So, a sensible person might ponder why the districts go to the trouble of an election.
All together now: Because it’s required by law.
It has occurred to more than one school district and county election commissioner that holding a full-scale election when the decisions to be made don’t affect the outcome seems a little loopy.
School districts - Arkansas has 239 of them - in the past have asked whether they can forego the cost and trouble of the annual election if no contested races develop and the millage remains unchanged. They wanted to settle the question by only counting up the early and absentee ballots, a move that would still allow anyone who wanted to cast a vote to get theirs in.
Basically, the question is this: If the election’s outcome will have no impact whatsoever, is it necessary to set up polling places, hire poll workers, distribute voting machines, and so on?
The law says it is absolutely necessary. So maybe there is a lemon involved in this story.
It would be encouraging if some bright, Arkansas-educated state lawmaker went down to Little Rock next year and tried to make this situation make sense. We’re all for the principle of residents voting. But when no candidates are at play and the millage question proposes no change, election commissions should be authorized to dispatch the required election in the most eft cient manner possible.
Does that make too much sense to become law?
Opinion, Pages 5 on 09/29/2012