In the Republican Party township primary elections, only 2.43% of the 140,101 registered voters bothered to cast ballots.
Algonquin was worst at 1.2%.
Next was Grafton township with 2.18%.
Best was Nunda Township, where 5.65% of the eligible voters cast ballots.
As the defenders of township government love to point out, their tax take is only about 2% of the total real estate tax bill.
I usually don’t claim to speak for others, but I’m going out on a limb to speculate this is because those of us who don’t have jobs or family interests in making money off township government see it as a wasteful layer that does little and costs a lot.
All winter I drive the length of McConnell Rd twice a day, and the crappy road clearing contrasts with the good at the township boundary because god knows we can’t have one decent salt/plow truck do the whole length of a road I could travel on foot in 20 minutes.
It’s silly that these little government units have their little hierarchies and budgets and offices and titles, as though we are still in prepavement days.
And yes, schools cost too much.
Different issue.
People often talk about running government like a business.
No one charged with setting up a business to maintain county roads or get home bound folks to doctors would set up a dozen little subunits, each with fleets and rules and independent bureaucracies.
So Martin, I suppose you are saying the services that are provided by the local layer of government could be provided better and cheaper by pushing them onto a larger body of government?
Do you have some numbers for reference?
If so perhaps bring them forward, it would be good to see as a point of reference, as opposed to just repeating the same lines, like they only exist because of this, that, or the other thing.
This is why you have the clowns you do in township government.
Any township with over 15,000 population gets to have partisan elections.
That means the primaries have to occur sometime before the consolidated elections so we have them on the last Tuesday in February in odd numbered years every 4 years.
This is right after the Presidential elections so everyone has election fatigue.
As a result, virtually no one shows up and then, because most counties are predominately one party or the other, that primary becomes tantamount to the election.
If all township elections were at least non partisan, you would have much more turnout as it would take place alongside the municipal and school board elections.
There is no reason for political parties in township government.
They fill potholes.
Potholes are not partisan.
I’ll vote in April when its time to Vote in the runoff against Derek (Miller) Lee.
Not sure if your numbers are correct Cal?
This was a Republican Primary not total registered voters.
Though people in this state can flip at will, I would go by the registered Republicans in the Townships.
Who pays for this?
Township or county?
Most townships opted to not even have a primary
They will still have elections in April, but candidates won’t have a political party next to their names.
The County pays.
Of those townships eligible to hold partisan primaries, three out of five did so.
In Illinois, one does not register in a party.
Anyone can vote in a partisan primary by just asking for a party’s ballot.
That’s why these elections should all be combined ….. 2 elections … a primary and a general every two years….. just like many other states
I did not realize there was an eligibility thing and stand corrected.
I just knew we have 16 or 17 townships in our county and only a few had primaries.
So is that like how the GOP is organized with a “NorWest committee” for those small townships?
Is it like that, where they need to have at least 10 precincts to be eligible?
The law, which Jack Schaffer and I wrote, says parties in any township with 5,000 or more people can opt to hold a referendum, rather than a caucus.
This article is a bit unfair.
The County has been flooded with third world imports, section 8 negroes from the South and West Sides of Chicago ( and even Robbins and Blue Island) and other flotsam — all democrats.
So the total # of eligible voters who are Republicans us significantly reduced.
And we still have the fine old white families like the one that produced the child porn aficionado and felon-in-possession just arrested in Crystal Lake.
But, since he’s not brown or black, he doesn’t get put in the stocks here in the Cal-iphate for you to vilify.
Martin, go back to masturbating to your interracial gay porn.
Everyone laughs at the basement dwelling nerds of Antifa threatening violence, since most probably couldn’t do a pullup or punch their way out of a wet paper bag without crying, but here’s the thing – they don’t have to be tough if they are protected from on high.
The police will not arrest them (or protect you).
The State’s Atty will not charge them.
The judge will not sentence them.
And if you so much as raise a finger in self defense, well guess what?
The weight of the state will come down on you, a la Kyle Rittenhouse.
Facts and law be damned.
That’s how the communists win
Eventually, strong conservative men will have to realize that the police and courts are not on their side and that justice must be sought on a much more personal level.
Sad but true.
Either accept the situation and adapt or be subjugated, that’s your only choice now.
If enough Antifa find out that, for whatever reason, they can’t just waltz home to Mom’s basement and a nice cup of soup after a night of bashin’ the fash’ well then somebody might lose their useful idiot foot soldiers . . .
Could this turn out be indicative of why townships need to be eliminated?
whats the point this STATE is in a huge downward spiral none of these pension grabbers get it !
its all about them not the tax paying people just them and im not talking about handing out FREE Cheese…
You seem agitated.
You’re for law and order except when you don’t like the result.
You back the blue except when they enforce against people you’d like them to pass by.
You’re against cancel culture except when you want your Party to censure a duly elected person of your Party who dared to think independently rather than follow the present Party line.
Antifa is weak and they live with their moms, but you fear them enough to ignore the constitution and civil rights.
And you seem to sort the world into two camps, communist and fascist.
99% of us are nowhere near either one.
Most of us would like to get on with our lives and work and families in peace, and your horror fantasies are silly imaginings of your insecurity.
I love this blog because it allows people to show who they are, and put the rest of us on notice that these disgusting racist and homophobic and otherwise moronic ideas live on in our community.
Also, and this is for you @Wylie, your “go to” insult of homosexuality — interracial or otherwise — is a symptom of your own pathology and belief that “conservative values” are equivalent to white heterosexual virility and your anxiety that social change may deprive you of the privilege you enjoy as a white man.
This is why you suggest violence for “strong conservative men.”
There are not enough guns in the world to protect the fragility you exhibit.
Turnout in 2013 was very low too.
Total turnout was 4.68 percent.
Many precincts were in the low single digits and some were even below one percent.
https://www.mchenrycountyil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument?id=22332
Here are facts and data on crime from the U.S. Department of Justice dated Jan 2021
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf
I love this blog bc I dream of crushing communists’ (like Jackaroo Franks and Craver aka WileyQuixote) lice infested heads.
https://wrex.com/2021/02/25/winner-of-belvidere-2nd-ward-alderman-primary-election-to-be-determined-by-coin-flip/