It’s not unreasonable to hope that when voters make decisions important enough to justify an election they do so with a clear understanding of what is at stake.

In Spokane County right now, circumstances seem to have conspired against that modest expectation.

For one thing, hardly had voters returned one mail-in ballot for the presidential preference primary than they received another asking whether to renew a modest sales tax that helps pay for jail and juvenile detention costs. The new ballots arrived in the midst of considerable public debate about the need for a costly new jail – and not long after voters rejected another sales tax measure to pay for a new emergency communications system.

So the first thing voters need to understand is that the question posed on that ballot on the kitchen table (if they haven’t already marked it and mailed it in) is not about the things listed above.

Unfortunately, the language on the ballot doesn’t help. The proceeds of the tax, the ballot explains, would be used only for “financing, design, acquisition, construction, equipping, operating, maintaining, remodeling, repairing, re-equipping, and improvement of Juvenile Detention Facilities and Jails …”

Whew.

What that mouthful doesn’t convey is that the tenth of a penny being asked for was first approved by county voters in 1995. And they’ve been satisfied enough to renew it twice. If they do so again, they’re simply agreeing to keep adding a dime to every $100 in retail purchases. That’s a bargain, considering the basic corrections needs at stake. We would agree that criminal justice policies need attention. They rely too heavily on incarceration for cases in which other responses would be more appropriate and more cost-effective. Thoughtful change is needed.

In the meantime, however, we have jails and juvenile detention facilities that require adequate staffing and upkeep. County officials say the impact would be devastating if the renewal measure, worth about $8 million a year, is defeated.

When the concept was presented to voters for the first time in 1995, we had doubts, primarily because plans for using the money lacked details. After more than a decade of experience, however, it has become clear that the county’s ability to meet the basic expenses associated with confining lawbreakers would be compromised if this nearly painless tax were discontinued.

It won’t be long before more ballots arrive in Spokane County voters’ mail, and some may deal with other, more controversial jail issues. But the current question (for which ballots have to be postmarked by March 11) has a