Why No One Votes in Local Elections
In many districts, voting is made difficult by design. Here’s how to fix that.
Keep it simple.
Photographer: Darren Hauck/Getty Images
We’re about to have a wave of local-government elections in Texas. Turnout is going to be dismal. Here in San Antonio, with a contested mayoral election and city council races, we’ll be lucky to hit 10 percent. It’s a disgrace — especially since we know exactly how to fix this problem.
Emily M. Farris and Hannah Vu have a nice column urging folks to vote in local elections — and discussing why they don’t. The problem isn’t that local government is unimportant. In fact, many of the decisions made locally are far more consequential for our day-to-day lives than those made at the state or federal level. The neighborhoods we live in, for example, are shaped by local zoning laws (or their absence). Whether you can walk to a grocery store, movie theater or restaurant is mostly determined by local regulations. So are a lot of big traffic and transit questions. Parks, libraries, policing, firefighting: local government, for the most part.