With just six months separating Americans from the upcoming presidential election in November, California’s June 5 primary election provided a needed distraction for voters, and more importantly shifted the focus back to problems here at home.

The early moments of California’s bi-annual mid-year election unfolded as expected. At random locations throughout Oakland, a few early morning professionals shuffled into select churches, libraries and municipal buildings to cast their ballots on measures and legislation directly impacting the state. The stream of voters was not overwhelming, but just enough to show people still believe in the power of voting.

For all the mailers, legislative information cards, proposition and measure endorsements — all having been jammed into our small residential mail slots over the past several weeks — the atmosphere in at least two polling locations still reflected a somewhat detached California, with resident voters possibly lacking faith in their individual ability to turn the monetary problems of the state around.

“I got a few of those things in the mail,” says Andrea Green, a Bay Area voter, “but I just threw them away. It’s too much. Someone should just put it on a cheat sheet.”

Unfortunately, most people say they deal with their ballot informational mailers the same way. All of that stuff goes right into the recycling bin or the trashcan. I mean, who reads that junk, anyway?

The real issue is, as California residents, all of us should have read that junk. Simply put, three whole propositions that graced the ballot sheets of Tuesday’s election probably were background music, unknown by the general public as a result of not reading up.

The state is in the midst of a record-setting budget deficit, which has grown from $9 billion to almost $16 billion in the last six months. Gov. Jerry Brown has grossly underestimated the spending of the state and as a result, California continues to slide into the depths of a mismanaged financial abyss. And the results? The closures of schools, downgrading of municipal and public services, the cutting of funding for pretty much everything — even top-tier government employee salaries have seen reductions. Even the governor has decreased his own salary.

While results of this past Tuesday’s California primary may not be official until early July, the effect of the attention on November’s presidential election has overshadowed opportunities to aid California through legislation, the type of legislation effectively missing from Tuesday’s ballot. In the surprisingly low number of measures for California voters to consider, specifically relating to state finances, this unfortunately mirrors California’s lackluster attempts in nursing itself out of its hazardous crisis.

The most notable items on Tuesday’s ballot were Proposition 28, the limitation on legislators’ terms in office; Proposition 29, an imposed additional tax on cigarettes for the benefit of funding cancer research; and several city and county-specific measures ranging from letters A to Z. Examples are Measure B in Oakland, detailing an attempt to create and keep funding available for community colleges in city; Measure G in Hayward aiming to generate funding for Hayward Unified School District; and Measure B in San Francisco, which proposes a limit on commercial development at landmark Coit Tower.

None of these propositions or measures — with maybe the exception of Proposition 29 — look to create great streams of revenue directly for our ailing state. Nor does it seem like a great deal of effort has been placed on the prospect of at least attempting to generate sensible pathways towards a brighter California future.

Ultimately, focus will shift back to the running for the presidency and other issues facing the rest of the country over the next few days, but California will still be in the midst of righting itself — possibly with no real assistance from the only opportunity for the people to voice their political preferences before November.