![\"\"](\"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/low-voter-turnout-illinois-primary-election-300x235.jpg\" "\\"low-voter-turnout-illinois-primary-election\\"")
If McHenry County\u2019s voters are angry about a state government mired in ethical scandals and facing economic catastrophe, they did not express their displeasure at the ballot box Tuesday.<\/p>\nIf McHenry County\u2019s voters are angry about a state government mired in ethical scandals and facing economic catastrophe, they did not express their displeasure at the ballot box Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Just short of 18 percent of county registered voters cast ballots in the February primary, County Clerk Katherine Schultz said.<\/p>\n
The turnout was the lowest since 1978, when only 17.5 percent of voters participated in the primary.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s turnout was almost 10 percent less than the last non-presidential primary in 2006. <\/span><\/p>\n Schultz had predicted less than 20 percent turnout after disappointing shows for early and absentee voting in the month leading up to the election.<\/p>\n That took her a bit by surprise, because of public discontent over the economy and problems in Springfield.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, those kind of things should generate more interest,\u201d Schultz said Wednesday. \u201cIf people are upset about these things, wouldn\u2019t you think that the first place they would go is to the polls to vote?\u201d<\/p>\n Illinois State Board of Elections Director Dan White had estimated before the primary that statewide turnout would be below the 30 percent average, but numbers were not available Wednesday.<\/p>\n The state record for low turnout in a primary for statewide offices was 25 percent, set in 1978 and again in 2006, according to election board data.<\/p>\n Some experts were taken aback at Tuesday\u2019s turnout, given the stakes.<\/p>\n The governor was impeached a year ago after his arrest on federal corruption charges. One of his final acts was his unpopular appointment of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate seat previously occupied by President Obama and now up for grabs.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, voters are angry about the sluggish economy and the fact that one Illinois resident in 10 is out of work. Add to that the record $13.2 billion budget deficit that the General Assembly is dealing with.<\/p>\n The state of affairs might have been the very thing that kept voters away from the polls, said David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.<\/p>\n Yepsen said the economy, unemployment and a sense of helplessness about cleaning up a state famous for graft might have prompted people to consider voting in the primary a futile gesture.<\/p>\n But Yepsen and Schultz blamed something else as well \u2013 the fact that the primary was in early February instead of late March.<\/p>\n The General Assembly moved the primary up six weeks starting in 2008 to help Obama\u2019s presidential aspirations. Critics called the move an \u201cincumbent protection policy\u201d that would make it harder for challengers to win elections.<\/p>\n Yepsen said Tuesday\u2019s turnout proved that critics\u2019 concerns were justified.<\/p>\n \u201cBy discouraging turnout, only the most loyal of party regulars, the zealots and the activists in both parties, are going to show up,\u201d Yepsen said. \u201cThe law of unintended consequences is always at work in these things.\u201d<\/p>\n The low county turnout does not mean that voters maintained the status quo.<\/p>\n Voters in three of the McHenry County Board\u2019s six districts sent Republican incumbents packing Tuesday. District 1 incumbent Yvonne Barnes, R-Cary, lost her bid for a second term, as did District 6 incumbent Dan Ryan, R-Huntley.<\/p>\n District 2 incumbent Lyn Orphal, who has served since 2000, came in last in a five-way race with only 9 percent of the vote, according to unofficial totals.<\/p>\n That almost equaled the four total GOP board incumbents ousted in the five previous primaries. One incumbent each lost in 2000 and 2006.<\/p>\n Two lost in 2002, mainly because the redistricting after the census pitted five incumbents in one district for four seats.<\/p>\n Republicans made up 72 percent of the voters on Tuesday. Twenty-seven percent of voters pulled Democratic ballots, and less than 1 percent pulled Green Party ballots.<\/p>\n Slightly more than half of the county\u2019s voters in 2008 pulled Democratic ballots in the traditional GOP stronghold, likely because of the excitement over the presidential race between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.<\/p>\n Totals available Wednesday did not include late absentee and provisional ballots.<\/p>\n By KEVIN P. CRAVER, kcraver@nwherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n Read the original article from the Northwest Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\n If McHenry County\u2019s voters are angry about a state government mired in ethical scandals and facing economic catastrophe, they did not express their displeasure at the ballot box Tuesday. Just short of 18 percent of county registered voters cast ballots in the February primary, County Clerk Katherine Schultz said. The turnout was the lowest since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
\n<\/img><\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"