Before the warm glow of victory fades into yet another spring election, our congratulations to the victors of Tuesday’s runoff elections — and our best to the losers as they chart destinies that involve other pursuits beyond elected office.

In some respects, they may even be the lucky ones.

Most importantly, our gratitude goes to those folks who troubled themselves to vote. If someone you know or believed in lost Tuesday’s hard-fought elections and you didn’t vote, you have only yourself to blame.

Alas, voter participation was dismal. Of the 126,112 voters registered in our county, only 8 percent actually went to the polls to vote Republican — and just over 1 percent voted Democratic. That was bad news for candidates like Waco businessman Rob Curnock, making his fourth congressional bid. Curnock told us a couple of weeks ago that he was confident his supporters were “chomping at the bit” to vote in the GOP runoff. Either they really weren’t chomping or there simply weren’t enough of them, because he lost.

Oops! Wrong race

We saw lots of campaign signs for Precinct 4 County Commissioner Ray Meadows, but not enough of his people voted, either — or, if they did, his challenger, Ben Perry, had more of them. Perry was backed by several prominent Tea Party activists, and his victory is doubtless a credit to their efforts.

Some obvious disasters were avoided. Family law judge Debra Lehrmann prevailed statewide in her bid for the Texas Supreme Court after the Republican establishment rallied to her side against an unqualified GOP candidate who once slugged a rival outside a church.

Karen Hall of the McLennan County Elections Office tells us runoff participation here was “typically bad.” Only dedicated voters and partisans for a particular candidate or cause often venture out to cast ballots in runoff elections. That may have decided the spirited runoff race for Democratic Party county chairman in favor of Karen Petree.

No doubt, Hall is correct that local voters are weary of all the elections we’re awash in these days. Besides the March 2 primary election and last Tuesday’s runoffs, we still have city and school elections May 8, plus a special election for the Texas Senate. Three Republicans and a Democrat are vying for that post.

With so many campaign signs for school board and city council candidates rivaling the bluebonnets of spring, it’s little wonder that some well-intentioned voters arrived at the polls last Tuesday, prepared to vote on city council and school board races.

Patience. That election will be here soon enough.