Looking at their ballots in Tuesday’s primary election, most Lake Countians must have asked themselves why they showed up in their precinct polling places to vote. Unless you were in a handful of electoral districts, most candidates were unopposed.
With few competitive contests, that led to a historic low turnout of 11.6% for a Lake County primary election. Out of a countywide total of 467,044 voters, 54,554 decided to cast ballots, according to the county clerk’s office.
The previous low Lake County primary turnout in a statewide election year was in 2014 when the turnout was 14%. In 2020, primary turnout was 23.6%.
Either Democrat or Republican, pickings were slim this election. We were not alone.
Statewide, overwhelming numbers of legislative and judicial contests on Tuesday’s ballot were uncompetitive. Indeed, a study conducted by Capitol News Illinois, the Springfield-based news service, determined that 88% of judicial and state legislative primaries featured either a single candidate or no one running at all. That’s the most in 20 years.
This is where faithful journalists insert their personal lobbying to urge that more voters head to the polls. Want to save democracy and have a larger turnout? Get more competitive races from the top down to the micro-local level.
That doesn’t seem to be happening. The number of Illinois primaries with no candidates running at all is close to past years, about 33%, Capitol News found. Yet, the number of primaries with a single person running jumped on Tuesday to 55%, from 46% in 2020.
There were a few competitive races on Tuesday’s ballot, like on the Democratic side in County Board District 8, which includes the North Side of Waukegan. That’s where incumbent Diane Hewitt easily fought off a challenge from Chuck Rukstales, a former city alderman, in the only County Board primary race out of seven seats up for nomination.
Referendums in Grayslake, the Round Lake area, Wadsworth and Deer Park, may have brought out more voters. However, Tuesday’s election was a sad commentary on our small-d democratic values.
Even contests for committeemen and women, that basic grassroots political office, were scant on primary ballots. Committeemen are our neighborhood political representatives and, from the look of it, there are plenty of vacancies for each party’s chair to fill before the fall.
With the presidential candidates and their convention delegates locked up earlier this month following Super Tuesday in states that didn’t include Illinois, the best voters could do was cast protest votes. On the Republican side of the ledger, voters could do so if they disagree with their party’s current presumptive nominee.
Apparently, many GOP voters did so. Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor, garnered 22.51% of the presidential vote even though she dropped out of the race. Former President Donald Trump received 72.4% of the vote from 16,002 voters.
Candidates running unopposed in local offices in Tuesday’s primary likely will be unopposed in the Nov. 5 general election. Political parties have until June 3, according to the election calendar, to fill any legislative and countywide blank spots on the November ballot.
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There currently are quite a few GOP candidacies missing across the board in once ruby-red Lake County. Some also can be found on the Democrat side.
Like in the west county 64th House District where incumbent state Rep. Tom Weber, R-Lake Villa, so far has no Democrat opponent in the fall election. The same is true in the 61st House District, which includes Gurnee, Waukegan and North Chicago, where longtime Democratic state Rep. Rita Mayfield has, as of this writing, no Republican opponent.
Even County Clerk Anthony Vega foresaw a puny voter turnout and he wasn’t wrong. Usually, county clerks are optimistic souls when it comes to voter turnout, but he predicted crowds would be AWOL from precincts due to the lack of contests on the ballot.
That being said, Vega and his election team deserve kudos for one of the easiest voting experiences in decades of trudging to the polls. Unless it was a breeze because of the extremely low turnout.
Instead of shuffling from table to table, the voting sign-up process was conducted at one spot. Easy peasy. Primary voters who skipped primary voting also missed a smooth voting experience.
Those lower primary turnouts mirror a national trend, that political scientists have been pointing out the last decade. Partisan redistricting maps, along with the rise of rabid progressives and right-wingers have squeezed out moderate Democrats and Republicans who in past decades would have run for office.
Vega kept a sunny spin in a pre-election News-Sun story by Steven Sadin: “Research shows people who vote in the primary are more likely to vote in the fall.”
Voters certainly will have a choice on most ballots come Nov. 5 and a reason to show up.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor, and editor.
X @sellenews