By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
We recently wrote about the worsening voter turnout of Illinois’ primary. In Sangamon County, home of our Capitol, just 13.9% voted. In Winnebago County, it was 14.1%. And in Chicago, voter turnout was just 25.9% – the lowest since 2012. We estimated overall statewide turnout would be about 20% overall.
Now official data shows turnout was a bit worse than that, at 19.1%. That’s the lowest presidential primary turnout since 1960, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Blame voter apathy on a lack of competitive elections. On gerrymandering. On the concern people have, thinking their votes don’t matter. It’s likely a little bit of each.
A new WTTW piece covers some of those issues well. Nearly 9 of every 10 state and judicial primary races had only a single candidate or no candidate running at all, WTTW reported.
What that leads to is uncontested races…and nobody showing up.
One more thing to point out. That record low turnout happened despite the dramatic increase in ways residents can vote – early voting, curbside voting, vote-by-mail.
Ease of access means nothing when there’s nothing or nobody to vote for, when people lose faith in the process or when people think their votes don’t matter.
Fixing this starts with an independent election commission that draws fair maps. Politicians shouldn’t be able to choose their voters through gerrymandering.
Then there’s restoring confidence in the process itself. Require picture IDs. End mail-in voting and the like, while allowing for necessary exceptions. Make Election Day count again.
And, in the name of all that’s sensible, require votes to be fully tabulated by the end of Election Day.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- $30 million over four years: How teachers unions influence Illinois politicians
- One tricky way Illinois politicians are hiking your taxes
- We must focus on cutting the cost drivers of Illinois property taxes if we’re ever going to deliver relief to taxpayers
- Chicago’s crime numbers must have DNC organizers sweating
At $1.5 million per job, the new incentive package from the state is at least 15 times the norm. For this much money, the state could have just handed out a million bucks to 827 people, instead of creating 550 jobs.
Ted joined Jeff Daly to discuss the university student protests erupting across the nation on the Israel/Palestine conflict, why it’s so dangerous for society if the media abandons facts in favor of narratives, why that allows government to spin away the problems like crime and financial crises, why it causes the voting public to become apathetic, and more.
When you hear the complaints from Illinois politicians, remember the hypocrisy: 40,000 bused to Chicago, but 161,562 allowed to fly directly to Florida.
Nearly one year ago, Chicagoans cheered Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s removal from office. In her place was Brandon Johnson, who promised a more inclusive approach to building a “better, stronger, safer Chicago.” It hasn’t turned out that way. Today, there’s little disagreement that Mayor Johnson has disappointed on most key issues. On crime. On policing. On migrants. On education. On governance. Even on foreign affairs.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about the problems and costs of the Chicago Bears’ proposed new stadium, why its unlikely to happen in its current form, why the ongoing wave of violent crimes makes residents scared of the city, and why the funeral of slain police officer Luis Huesca matters to Mayor Johnson’s reputation.
I need to learn how to persuade people to vote.
Run someone worth voting for other than TRUMP
Kinda an interesting article asking which of the Blue Sanctuary Cities – NYC, LA, Chicago, collapses first. Very sad, but this is part of a larger Leftist plan as defined by Cloward-Piven:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/which-major-city-will-completely-collapse-first-los-angeles-chicago-or-new-york-city
The answer to this is simple, democracy in America is dying, it can’t survive, and it is intentionally being killed by the massive unelected portion of our government. And weak leaders in whom evil thrives. I encourage everyone to watch, on youtube, the recent Joe Rogan podcast he did with Tucker Carlson. Rogans shows are 3 hours long, watch the whole interview, make some popcorn, Chromecast it to your TV, settle in, and after 3 hours you (and your spouse) will know exactly why this and many other pillars of our way of life are dying, and will be gone… Read more »
All the wealth, businesses, moneymakers are leaving for Republican run states and the blue states are going right into the sh***er. Like i’ve said since the racist blm riots of 2020 burning down the cities and plandemic scam of 2020 and death jab genocide of 2020, the US will turn into a East Berlin West Berlin type country. The red states are thriving and the blue states and total criminal crapholes with complete morons running them. All the red states will have the large majority of wealth and will be deep red getting deeper red while the blue states are… Read more »
Let me correct my last post, the libtard sh*thole Detroit isn’t even the worst anymore, lets change that to the libtard moron sh*thole communist crime infested drug infested “utopia” city of Portland. Good thing all the libtards took the “really just a mild cough covid” covid bioweapon injection death jabs, we know what the result of that will be in the near future, 95% effective! Good riddance! LOL!
Why go out to vote when you have a high risk of being carjacked, raped, murdered, mugged, people know its dangerous to step foot outside their homes in the Chitcongo lol
I vote but always feel my vote doesn’t count!! Not being one of those liberals…..it kind of just gets lost
Its because its way too dangerous to even go vote in the libtard utopia and everyone who lives there knows it. Getting carjacked to go vote, yeah they are going to pass on that one lol
Chris, pack up and move already, get out of the communist sh*thole democrat run city/state, there are far better states to live in, way safer, greater opportunities for whatever job you have. Look into moving, it’s a lot of work to do, but just do it. Also if you don’t like the job you have now, there are tons of companies in red states willing to pay for your training for a new career that pays well. Republican run states are excellent, communist sh*thole states are horrendous.
The machine knows and counts on low voter turnout….BCH was planned for low voter turnout. But they lost with 25% chicago turnout
Everyone knows the turds will cheat and dump ballots to get themselves in, it’s the satanic democrat way
When your opponent/enemy has an overwhelming advantage, you either surrender or run away. Not voting makes sense as that is a form of surrender. Running away also makes sense. Voting when you know your candidate will lose…does that make sense?
kind of…….but vote anyway….we might get lucky!!
I live in suburban Cook county. I am in a Chicago district not near my home. My vote never counts. Suburban Cook county’s only role is to pay taxes to fund Chicago. Most of our tax dollars do to Chicago’s needs. Very little if any money is spent in the suburbs for health care services. So much for JB’s election promise of fair congressional districts drawn by independent group!
Deb, leave the state, its a lost cause, so many better states to live in than craphole Illinois
The silver lining is that the reasonable and responsible voters who remain in IL can vote and make a difference. Throwing sand into the Leftist Democrat machine is a great thing.
PS: Notice the low turnout is of no concern to the legacy media in IL, for that was the expected outcome of the regimes efforts.
Seems this situation is an indication that conservatives need to do a massive get out the vote project here. Maybe the others will remain complacent. (I know, probably won’t work, but we won’t know if we don’t try.)
Cook county produces liberals faster than the rest of the state can produce conservatives. The war is over and conservatives lost in Illinois. Go ahead and vote for Trump in the next election, but we both know he won’t win the state.
Re the low primary turnout in Sangamon County, I have always heard that this is a holdover from the pre-Rutan days when state employees didn’t want to get tagged with the “wrong” political affiliation in case the next governor was of the opposite party. Although political hiring for non-policy positions was, at least officially, ended by the Rutan decision more than 30 years ago, old habits may be hard to break.
In spite of news readers being all connected to Dems, in spite of the overwhelming number of spongers who vote Dem to maintain access to the free stuff, you must always vote it is the only power to have. I view the primaries here in Cook Cty. as a chance to get behind enemy lines and subvert them. Sometimes it’s successful. My vote for Mark Fairchild and 2 other nuts in the primaries kept Adlai Stevenson III from the Governor’s chair.
Why even bother. Cook County controls the entire state and jams the liberal, progressive insanity down the throats of all the Illinoians who totally disagree. 102 counties of which at least 90 are solid conservative and they simply have no voice. Bullet proof dominance in the state house and senate. 2 US senators who are liberal democrats, the state Supreme Court I believe all state offices. My vote does not count unless I want to elect the dog catcher in my community. I’m done voting, it’s a waste of time.
Some commenters will probably say you not voting is part of the problem. In other states, I would agree with them, but in Illinois, you are just facing reality. Illinois belongs to the ultra-liberals. Once residents accept that reality, they can either learn to live with it or make plans to leave.
But, i do vote when there is a tax referendum on the ballot
You are not wrong except by not voting we let the hard core fringe 5% dominate issues and decisions.
I’ll always encourage people to vote, but I completely understand the apathy. Democrats have intentionally created significant hurdles for Republicans to overcome to win state elections. The gerrymandering is beyond absurd and our maps are some of the worst in the country. Voting rules allow for ballot harvesting, early voting and mail-in ballots that favor Democrats. And if even if by some miracle we did some a majority Springfield, we’d still have to deal with Illinois’s bureaucratic ‘Deep State’ that would sabotage any effort to effectuate change. Rauner poignantly pointed this out after he lost, he said he couldn’t get… Read more »
There is a representative district that runs from the Mississippi River, quad city area, all the way through parts of Rockford, Loves Park and Machesney Park. The district boundaries look like a snake. Why? To grab as many democrats as they can to insure victory. Gerrymandering? JB and his fellow thugs say only republicans do that.
and we all know jp is full of sh,,!!
People have given up, with good reason.
I’m not proud to admit this, but in my final few years in Illinois, I stopped voting. I knew the candidate I supported was doomed to lose. Also, I knew I my time in Illinois was coming to an end, so it didn’t really matter to me anymore. Once you make the decision that your future is elsewhere, you stop caring about Illinois. No, that’s not quite true…. sometimes you actually want Illinois to self-destruct.
People are afraid to even leave their homes to go vote. Why get carjacked or murdered to just go out and vote?