In a heated Land Use Commission meeting last Wednesday, resident after resident stepped up to the podium to provide their suggestions and complaints on the second draft of Envision Evanston 2045, a widely debated comprehensive and rezoning plan.
Yet, Commissioner Max Puchtel provided the audience with a fresh solution to their Envision Evanston woes: He proposed they vote in the upcoming municipal elections.
“I’d have to imagine that anybody running for alderperson this spring is going to be very clear about their position on this hot-button issue,” Puchtel said. “Through representation, you are voting for those people.”
Less than a month out from Evanston’s consolidated elections, City Council candidates and mayoral hopefuls continue to canvas as concern lingers over voter turnout on April 1.
In the 2021 consolidated election, the last one with all nine wards represented on the ballot, the turnout per ward ranged between 18.66% and 35.51%, with the 5th and 6th wards having the lowest and highest turnout rates respectively.
Due to the relative sizes of each ward’s registered populations, the difference of a few dozen votes can ultimately determine the winner in a contentious race. For example, Ald. Clare Kelly (1st) won her seat against former incumbent Judy Fiske by just 26 votes in 2021.
Northwestern Political Science Prof. Mary McGrath affirmed that municipal elections bring lower turnout than national-level elections due to the latter’s nationwide campaign attention and the increased amount of money in higher-level campaign coffers.
The pattern falls true for Evanston voters: total turnout for the city in the 2024 national election was 77%, and ranged from 63% to 84% turnout across all the wards.
In a volatile and decisive time for local politics with the stalling of Envision Evanston 2045 and the pending relocation of the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center, Evanston’s ward candidates and political organizations strive to drive up voter engagement.
According to McGrath and her research, more personalized campaigning tends to drive up engagement and turnout for elections.
“A knock on the door is going to be more effective than a mailer in the mail or and much more so than something like an automated phone call,” McGrath said.
In the final weeks of the campaign, candidates are in the midst of high-engagement, face-to-face canvassing.
So far, many candidates have developed varied engagement efforts for their campaigns, from hosting coffee chats and setting up yard signs to chatting local politics to passersby on neighborhood streets.
“(We’ll) keep knocking doors, keep calling, keep networking, just keep it going all the way up until the night before and even the day of (the election), just keep trying to reach people and engage with them,” 2nd Ward challenger Darlene Cannon said.
Local organizations, including the League of Women Voters of Evanston, are promoting voter engagement and awareness of municipal elections by hosting candidate forums and sending out candidate information sheets.
The league will be hosting their candidate forum for mayoral, city clerk and City Council candidates on Saturday, March 8.
“We want to educate the voters,” League of Women Voters President Michelle Jordan said. “We want to make sure that the voters can vote and are not prevented from voting. And we want to make sure that the voters are educated,”
LWVE previously filed a report on voter turnout in municipal elections in February 2020, which noted that younger Evanston voters aged 18-29 had a consistently lower turnout compared to voters of other age groups in the 2014 and 2018 elections.
The driving factors identified in the report for the disparities were a lack of in-depth civics education and of information on local candidates. The report recommended considering lowering the voting age in Evanston’s consolidated elections.
Kathy Hayes, president of the Democratic Party of Evanston, noted that the Trump administration’s policy shake-up at the federal level could embolden Evanston’s more progressive voters to turn out for local candidates.
“The federal issues will also pull people to (vote) because they’re gonna say, ‘We’re not going to stand for it here, and we’re going to push back,’” Hayes said.
Hayes added the importance of building community solidarity in turning out voters to the polls, including offering rides to the polls and neighbors helping each other out.
Overall, she emphasized the importance of county and local politics both on and off of election season.
“Teach your family members and your children that voting matters, not just with national elections, but it definitely matters for local elections that affect how you live each and every day,” Hayes said.
Residents may register to vote by online application until March 16. Early voting will begin on March 17 and run until March 31. Election Day is April 1.
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