Point to remember on suburban turnout
The early line on last week's voter turnout in Cook County is something to crow about: record voter registration of 1.35 million, record early voting of about 60,000 ballots, suburban voter turnout of nearly 43 percent.
According to the Cook County clerk, we haven't seen numbers like these in a primary since 40 percent of registered suburban voters went to the polls in 1992. And before that, you have to go back 40 more years for the next comparable voting contingent of 44 percent.
Figures like these can help us feel encouraged about the health of the democracy in the suburbs. But wait, there's more. And -- even beyond the observation that 40 percent participation isn't exactly a tremendous standard -- it is not so uplifting for the suburbs.
Looking at just a couple of additional numbers may alert suburban voters to a key point on who's controlling their interests. The suburbs' record number of registered voters is actually slightly higher than the 1.3 million city of Chicago voters. Yet, turnout in the city last Tuesday was more than 52 percent, nearly 10 percentage points higher than the suburban turnout -- and part of a trend that has been in play for decades. In 1992, for example, the same primary that attracted the 40 percent suburban vote saw turnout in the city of 50 percent.
To be sure, the city and suburbs share many interests, and there is nothing to be gained by pitting one region against the other. But their interests do diverge at times, and the city's stronger participation at the polls gives it an obvious edge in such cases.
Perhaps one of the most prominent of these is at the county board, where control of a $3 billion county budget historically has remained in hands whose politics are aligned much more with the city machine than with concerns of the more than half the electorate outside the city.
Just imagine the effect if an additional 10 percent of the suburbs' 1.35 million voters went to the polls. That's 135,000 voters to add to this primary's record turnout of fewer than 580,000. By way of comparison, just more than 685,400 ballots were cast in the city last Tuesday.
It could make a real difference in the direction of governmental affairs at the regional level. But a body of voters that size would also be a significant force in national races from the selection of U.S. senators to the presidency.
Of course, those imagined 715,000 voting suburbanites would not speak with a single voice. It has been well documented that the days are rapidly disappearing when Republican candidates could automatically count on suburban support. Which is as it should be. The voting booth should be a place of exciting, dynamic activity, as diverse as the thousands of individuals who return there to have a say in the direction of their local, state and federal governments. But that diversity is missing a sizable contingent when suburban participation falls so dramatically behind.
It's all well and good to be proud that voter turnout was strong this primary. But it's also important to keep in mind that, in the suburbs particularly, it still needs to be stronger.