No Dice

Okay a little more SouthCoast today ...

Freetown voters went to the polls yesterday in a non-binding referendum on the casino proposal involving that town.  The results, with 22% of eligible voters casting a ballot:  954 against, and 303 in favor. 

Pretty significant expression of the feelings of the community.  Slightly more than 75% who showed up for at polls said "No".  

To get over 20% to even go out and vote for a non-binding anything is significant.  To lose an issue by a 3 to one margin is a pretty strong indication of the public sentiment.  

The next vote is on slate for Saturday I believe.  That one is in Lakeville.  Could be the citizens of Lakeville might be more inclined to vote for a casino.  Could be that given the vote in neighboring Freetown, absent a completely opposite result, the Lakeville/Freetown proposal by one of the two competing Indian Tribes is all ready D.O.A.

The Aquinnah proposal for those two towns started out as the underdog to begin with.  There is some issue with our Governor over whether they even have the right under a prior agreement to conduct gaming operations.  That whole concept may end up in the courts, and could drag on for years, and who knows, might even result in an additional casino.  

The present circumstances indicate, however, that if public sentiment is to truly be considered in the awarding of a casino, it doesn't exist in the Town of Freetown.  Might be there was in fact insufficient time to make the argument to the voters as to why it was a good proposal.  It might even be true there was a lot of disinformation out there by opponents.

What there is no question about is the margin by which "the question" was defeated.  In at least one community, you would be hard pressed to argue there was any significant desire, even a strong minority support, to locate the casino there.

Had the turnout been less, say in the 10% to 15% range, or had the margin been no more than 60% to 40%, one might have a glimmer of hope about the outcome not truly representing the feelings of the community. 

As an elected official, a vote like that makes life a heck of a lot easier, especially on an issue like casinos.  There is a clear voter mandate.  Even when you try to factor in only a 22% turnout, the 3 to 1 margin on the issue better give you a clear indication of the split in sentiment among those 78% who stayed home.

One need not be a talking head to make an educated guess that there wasn't a great deal of appeal for the proposal.

While I am not a big supporter of non-binding votes on issues, when you do have them, one needs to pay attention to them.  Smaller turnouts and smaller margins do pose interesting dilemmas.  One is forced to gauge whether in fact such a vote is "representative".  

But when you can get over 1/5th to vote on something that has no binding implications, and when you get a 3 to 1 margin, well I think you should be getting a pretty clear picture.

Any way you roll the dice analysing the outcome on this matter, at least in Freetown, you come up with craps.