Local Elections – Where Your Vote REALLY Matters

When Democratic State Committee Chairman John Walsh was going around the State in 2010, and again in 2012, speaking to volunteers to motivate them to keep working hard, he cited some pretty remarkable statistics. Without getting too deep into the numbers, Chairman Walsh’s basic point was that every last vote does matter, so the drive towards getting out those votes has to be consistent and strong. This is a sentiment that nearly every campaign – whether it is for a politician or a ballot question – expresses in some form or another to its target audience. Even the candidates for United States President, each of whom received tens-of-millions of votes, emphasized that each individual vote matters a lot.

I agree with this. Even in a sea of 100 million votes, I do believe that each individual vote has tremendous significance. So, what about a field of, say, 5,000? Well, each individual vote must really matter, there – right? Exactly, Which is why local elections should see the highest voter turnout, because in no other circumstance does one individual vote matter so much.

There is history as recently as this week to prove the point. . 74. Which means that if 38 people had voted the other way, Leah Cole would not be Peabody’s new voice on Beacon Hill. Or, to put it another way, if the Democratic candidate in the race had been able to convince 75 more people to vote for her, then she would have won. That’s not a lot of people. That is each of us calling about half of the contacts we have in our cell phone. The point is simple: every vote counts, so every eligible voter should vote.

What perplexes, then, me is how skewed voter turnout numbers are in favor of larger elections. It is a pretty commonly held belief among campaigns that the best year for turnout is a year in which there is a presidential campaign at the top of the ballot. Yet, the basic numbers demonstrate the validity of the counter argument: there are fewer votes to be had in a local election, so more voters should recognize the increased weight of their vote in those elections and should therefore cast a ballot.

Additionally, since voting is our ability to have a voice in our government, local elections should definitely see greater turnout than the national or statewide ones. After all, the influence the President can have on any given community is marginal, especially when compared with the impact that the Selectmen, School Committee, Town Meeting Members or other locally elected officials can have.  

Why is this the case? Why don’t local, town or municipal elections see the turnout that the big races do? To be honest, I do not have an answer. I do think a part of it has to do with the fact that mass media consumption has made it much easier for the “average” voter to keep up-to-date with the activities of Washington, D.C.-based politicians. This focus on non-local politicians is made worse by the struggling state of many local papers. Even as they move more content online, there are stories every day about how the town-wide dailies and weeklies are having a tremendously hard time keeping ahead of the declines in print and electronic journalism. 

So, what can be done? Well, here, I do have an answer: we need to find a way to encourage more people to vote in local elections. This could mean making changes to the voting laws in Massachusetts. But, more importantly than the laws that guide us are the conversations we have with our friends and neighbors. For people who do tend to vote in local elections, our obligation to encourage others to do the same is heightened by the knowledge that turnout will be lower than it should be.

Nothing affords an individual in a community the opportunity to have a voice in that community the way that a local election does. Nothing. It is our locally elected officials who play the largest role in deciding which businesses come to town, what events take place on our streets, and what life is like in our neighborhoods. It is these folks – the ones we see in our supermarkets on a regular basis, or the ones we speak with while waiting to pick our children up from school – who are the most directly responsible for our lives as residents of the communities they serve. Certainly their efforts can be hindered or helped by the Governor and, to some extent, by the President. But their ability to impact a community is unmatched.

Remember your local elections. Remember your down ballot candidates. Most of all, always remember the incredible privilege we have as citizens of this nation, and vote.