Why Don't People Care Enough to Vote?

There was an election in my county yesterday to elect a member of the County Council. The county of a million people has an annual budget of 3 and 3/4 million dollars. This is a challenging year for the county government, with a falling economy that would appear to call for budget cuts, especially a crisis in the construction business which will cut an important source of revenues, changing neighborhood composition, problems of gang related crimes, government employees forming an important lobby demanding raises over already high salaries, citizens demanding very high levels of services, and lobbies representing the private sector which also demand high levels of services.

The County Council, increasingly fractious, is currently split four-four on a number of divisive issues. The election was to replace the ninth member after the death of the Chairperson, who often cast the deciding votes on matters before the Council.

I would have thought that this would have been an election that people would vote in. The elected person will cast key votes for the next two and a half years. The country electorate is highly educated, and indeed contains a large portion of citizens who work in federal, state or local government, who therefore should be concerned with and interested in government. Yet the turnout was 10.64% of the registered voters, or 8,896 voters. They elected the 75 year old widower of the deceased Council member who basically ran as a neophyte committed to protecting the legislative agenda of his wife.

I would hope for more of my neighbors!