With campaigning and electioneering heating up as we near the June 6 primary, here are two numbers to consider: 8.44 percent and 7.37 percent.

Do your part for the valley - vote

Those are the voter-turnout percentages for School District 5 in the recent school elections. Only 8.44 percent of voters turned out to vote in the high school district; a mere 7.37 percent bothered to vote in the elementary district.

Those numbers aren't exactly inspirational testaments to democracy in action. Only one out of every 12 people made decisions affecting everyone. In the high school district, for example, this small minority of voters turned down a levy request to help pay transition costs for the new Glacier High School.

This paltry voting participation is a critical consideration heading into the primary election.

This year's primary is more than just a party-line winnowing of candidates for the general election. This year the primary will have real consequences.

Take the race for Flathead County sheriff: There are three candidates running and they're all Republicans.

That means that whoever is the primary winner is in all probability the next sheriff and will have the weighty responsibility for law enforcement in our sprawling, rapidly growing county.

Is this a decision we want made by a handful of voters?

Consider, too, the county commissioner contest. No fewer than 12 candidates - nine on the Republican side and three on the Democratic side - are vying for a single six-year term for an office that makes key decisions about the future of the Flathead.

Do we want one candidate's neighbors controlling the election?

If more of us don't vote on June 6, that's a distinct possibility given the splintering of votes likely from this huge field of candidates.

There are plenty of other reasons to go to the polls in the primary: seven contested legislative races, two contested justice of the peace races, two county ballot issues asking for money and a race for county superintendent of schools - plus the high-profile U.S. Senate campaign.

Take all those together, and remember the responsibility of the electorate in the democracy, and you can see why all of our votes matter.

This election counts and we voters have to be counted.

A 7- or 8-percent turnout is not enough. Citizens, we have to do better next time.