With No Hot Races, Will Oak Forest Voters Head To The Polls?

OAK FOREST, IL — Oak Forest residents will be voting tomorrow for four alderman positions and a taxpayer advocate. None of those seats are contested. Will you head to the ballot box or shrug 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 Oak Forest. 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 a— 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."

In Oak Forest's case, uncontested races may be tied to low voter turnout. Uncontested races, Mooney explained, offer little incentive for candidates and for the electorate. The candidates don't need to campaign heavily, so word about their race or issues don't get out to voters. They put little effort in campaigning. Voters look at the lack of options and think "what's the point?"

"Why would anyone go out and vote" under those conditions, he asked.

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 Oak Forest residents voted for aldermen in wards 1, 3, 5 and 7, and for the taxpayer advocate, two of the four races were contested. Guy Gattone was the sole candidate for the advocate position. He won with 9% of the citywide vote.

The ward races topped out at 12%. The two uncontested seats in wards 1 and 7 drew only 6% of voters in each area.

In 2017, the year of a top-ticket mayoral vote, which often drives voters to polls, Henry L. "Hank" Kuspa took office with support from 1,631 of the city's 19,929 registered voters. He became mayor with 9% of the vote.

He ran unopposed.

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."

What Oak Forest residents have to decide, then, starts before they even head to their polling places: Will they let daily routines and worries keep them in or will they go out Tuesday and vote?