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Who gets nominated or elected is sometimes a minor part of the election results.

While these are the best figures we have available, they are not exact nor official but were obtained by rounding off the best estimates available.

It was indicated earlier in the week that Blount County has about 72,000 registered voters.

Current population is estimated at about 130,000 residents.

Following previous traditional percentages, about 28 percent of the local population has been below 18 years of age. That would mean that an estimated 36,000 were too young (below 18 years) to vote. Thus nearly 93,000 residents are old enough to register and vote.

Based on the 72,000 number of registered Blount County voters, that would mean as many as 21,000 who are eligible age wise, are not registered. Many would be in nursing homes and perhaps physically unable to vote even when brought a ballot. And unfortunately, quite a number are illiterate.

Using the total number voting in the largest race in the Democrat Primary and the largest in the Republican Primary, it would appear that only about 15,500 or roughly 22 percent of the registered Blount County voters cast a ballot. (We doubt many voted in the general election that did not vote in one of the primaries.)

That is pathetic when regardless of administrations, local, state or national, we hear almost continuous complaints about government. It is our opinion that a person eligible to register to vote and a registered voter who is too uninterested in government to cast a ballot deserves what they get. And as far as most ears are concerned, they lose their right to voice complaints.

A further embarrassment at our lack of concern for government is reflected in the Eighth District Senate Republican Primary race in Blount and Sevier counties. As of the July 28 report, more than $350,000 had been spent by the candidates, no doubt an all-time record, and it netted a total of just over 20,000 voters. That figures out at a cost of roughly $17.50 per vote cast and doesn't include the expenditures after July 28.

No doubt many voters were turned off by conflicting views, junk mail and unsolicited telephone calls.

Possibly too few of us have been as insistent as we should be on exercising our right to vote. Too many haven't read that just a few years ago residents had to pay a poll tax in order to vote. Not too long before that women couldn't vote and still earlier only Caucasian residents could vote.

We were impressed by what one young father told his oldest son who had just turned 18 and was nearing college. He didn't suggest for whom his son should vote but he told him, "You live in this house, you vote!"