How about a show of hands? Figures may not lie, but we’re on that page of the calendar where they talk nonsense.

An election is approaching, and the officials in charge are going through the traditional exercise of predicting how much enthusiasm voters will show for the process. Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed foresees a turnout of 60 percent by the time all the ballots — both mail-in and in-person — have been tallied in next Tuesday’s polling.

And Reed, along with most folks who follow such things, considers that level of turnout very good, at least for an odd-numbered year when ballots feature mostly just state and local initiatives and town and city offices. No presidents, statewide offices, legislators or congressional seats. Nothing really important enough to get worked up about.

Thus, a 60 percent turnout in a general election can be interpreted as (this is the nonsense part) high. Remember that this is 60 percent of those who care enough to register, preventing the most passionately apathetic residents from driving the turnout rate even lower.

In a place like Iraq, meanwhile, where the United States is teaching citizens all about democracy, they risk roadside bombs to go to the polls, then parade home with thumbs dyed purple as evidence that they’ve voted. Here in the land of the free, an alarming number of us keep our hands in our pockets.

Rx for drug plan. A White House group is studying massive reforms to bring sanity and simplification to the U.S. Tax Code. Too bad it couldn’t do that same for the new Medicare prescription drug plan. Starting on Nov. 15, the 42 million of Americans eligible for the benefit can enroll in a plan. Picking among the dizzying array of options is the hard part.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll taken of Americans 65 and older found that 61 percent didn’t feel they understood the program. Similarly, one-third of respondents to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey said they understood the program well enough to know whether it would help them.

As with the tax code, political considerations are behind the complications that make the program so confusing. The good news is that seniors have six months to figure this out. Many will need every minute.