With Heated Races, Will Chicago Heights Voters Head To Polls?

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL — Chicago Heights is home to one of the region's hottest local races. But will you head to the ballot box Tuesday or shrug your shoulders and walk away?

Voter turnout across the region is on track to hit near-record lows, county clerks are saying, much like what happened in Chicago's February mayoral challenge. It's not just a local issue — the United States trails other developed countries in the number of people who cast ballots on election day. In the 2016 presidential election, only about 56% of Americans voted. The Illinois record mirrors those patterns.

Maybe you don't vote because you're satisfied with how things are going in the Heights. Maybe you're not, but believe your vote will have no impact on the races.

Or — maybe — you're just busy. You wouldn't be alone.

"American are human beings and human beings aren't all that interested in politics in general —they're busy thinking about their car problems, their family, their boss is an [expletive] and all the things that are regular, basic, time-consuming things," said Christopher Mooney, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago."Then all of a sudden, this election thing pops up and it just doesn't matter that much when you have to get your kid to school on time and make it to work today and so forth."

Chicago Heights voters will be electing a mayor, clerk and treasurer. The mayor's race is a contested race. Voters also will vote for aldermen in seven wards, with 12 candidates vying for those seats. There also are four write-in candidates for mayor and two for city clerk.

Voting advocates argue that people should go to the ballot box to choose candidates who take action they support and to participate in and support a vibrant democracy.

The numbers, however, show that voters are choosing to stay home.

In 2015, the last time these seats were up for grabs, David Gonzalez took the mayor's seat with just less than 17% of registered voters supporting him. The treasurer's race was uncontested.

Four of the seven council seats were not contested.

Unlike in nearby Oak Forest, where no major race is contested, Chicago Heights voters have options. That could prove to be a good thing with the major issues government officials face this year, including building a solar farm and improving the city's infrastructure to increase the tax base.

When there are no challenged candidates, it's hard to tell what impact single-candidate races have on communities, in part because each town or village has unique needs, Mooney and other political scientists said.

The bigger questions, Mooney said, are why some elections offer voters only one candidate and what that means for a democracy.

"It's not such a bad thing for democracy if the assumption is that we're satisfied, and when we're not, another official will run," he said.

"But if the reason nobody is running is because of an entrenched, elite polity with concentrated resources, then, yes, that is a problem because it is restraining the choices for leadership."

But in cases where there are heated races, such as with the Chicago Heights mayoral race, candidates tend to spend more and get their messages out more and it creates a cycle where voters start to take notice and think maybe their vote will count, Mooney said. People will vote when they believe their action will affect outcomes.

But the questions remains: Will they let daily routines and worries keep them in or will they go out Tuesday and vote?