Low Voter Turnout in Montgomery and Boulder Hill

Those hoping for high voter turnout in Tuesday’s election, at least in Montgomery and Boulder Hill, are bound for disappointment.

The running theme at the polls was loneliness, as election judges mainly talked with each other while waiting for voters. Election officials will tell you that consolidated elections—which focus on local races and don’t have state or federal campaigns to bolster them—generally bring out low numbers.

That was the case on Tuesday, as several precincts struggled to top 100 voters. At Montgomery Village Hall on River Street, home to two of those precincts in Kane County, total voters reached 153 by 5 p.m. And across the street at the Montgomery VFW Hall, Kane County judges had accepted ballots from 110 voters by 5:30 p.m.

“I think it’s pathetic,” said Election Judge Vern Dabbs. “It’s just lack of interest.”

These totals are despite a hotly-contested Montgomery Village Board election, in which seven candidates vied for three open seats. The Montgomery portions of the precincts saw higher numbers than other portions, judges said.

Judges sang the same song in Kendall County. At Boulder Point, on Boulder Hill Pass, a total of 114 ballots had been cast by 4:30 p.m.­ That’s roughly 10 percent of the registered voters in that precinct, according to Election Judge Rannalt Bahr.

“Unfortunately, people don’t get interested in things like school boards, when they really should,” Bahr said. “So many things get decided on the school board level.”

Voting was similarly slow at Lakewood Creek Clubhouse, where totals had barely topped 100 by 4:30 p.m. It was the same story in Boulder Hill, where heavily-debated Oswego school and park board elections didn’t bring out the voters either. With two precincts combined at Boulder Hill Elementary School on Boulder Pass, the total number of voters had not topped 91 by 5:30 p.m.

Election Judges Sharon Bulley and Dorothy Helgren said it often takes a tax-related referendum to bring voters out for consolidated elections. But the low numbers frustrated Bulley’s teenage daughter, Samantha Marshall, who also served as an election judge.

“People complain all the time, but when they have the chance to do something about it, they don’t,” she said.