Ballot expected to get big shrug from Indiana voters on Tuesday

In what’s been called an “off-off-election year,” with no big-ticket races on the ballot, Hoosiers may decline to exercise their right to vote in record numbers Tuesday.

A signal of that: Just a few days before the election, about 3 percent of registered voters have cast early ballots, even though early voting opened more than three weeks ago. In the general election two years ago, nearly a quarter of voters cast ballots early.

Analysts and pundits blame a lack of competitive races and other factors for the sluggish response. But Wade and Ulerick counter with a list of reasons to vote — including a call to duty.

“I’ve never missed an election,” said Wade, 25, a Republican and Greencastle city councilman who grew up across the street from a polling station. “My dad and grandpa always took pride in being the first persons in line to vote.”

Ulerick, the Democratic Party chairman in the Republican stronghold of Cass County, has been relentlessly pushing voters to get to the polls. He helped organize a non-partisan “Rock the Polls” concert in Logansport featuring local bands when early voting opened. Now he’s leveraging Halloween.

“When you get candy from my house, you get a campaign flyer, too, and maybe a button,” he said. “Doesn’t matter if you’re Republican or Democrat, the (candy) bags were already packed.”

Midterm elections typically have lower voter turnout than when presidential candidates are on the ballot, said Joe Losco, co-chairman of the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Ball State University. Traditionally, turnout in a midterm is about 20 to 25 percent lower.

“But we may see that go even lower this time,” he said.

How low? In May’s primaries, only 13 percent of Indiana’s 4.57 million registered voters cast ballots. In the 2002 primary election — the last time there wasn’t a president, governor or U.S. senator on Indiana’s ballot — turnout was 22 percent.

Losco said Hoosiers may suffer the same fatigue as other Americans. Rotating elections — like ones in Indiana that feature city races one year, then county and state races the next — exhaust voters.

Interest may be low for other reasons. There are no big races on the Indiana ballot for the first time in a dozen years. The top races are for the three most obscure statewide offices — secretary of state, treasurer and auditor.

All the congressional seats appear safely in the hands of incumbents. And only 71 of the 125 state legislative races are contested. Of those, only 10 or so are really in play, thanks to redistricting four years ago that favored Republican majorities in the state House and Senate.

“So there are communities where, holy cow, there’s hardly any contested thing on the ballot,” said Andy Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Indiana University / Purdue University in Fort Wayne.

Some polling places around the state will be busy — in places with contested county, township and school board races.

“If you’re willing to look more locally, you’ll find some pretty darn exciting stuff,” Downs said.

Cass County may be an example. There’s a heated race for county prosecutor, along with some competitive township trustees races, including one that pits the former Logansport mayor, a Democrat, against the Republican incumbent.

That’s why Ulerick, the Democrat, is working overtime to get out the vote — a goal that Republican Wade finds noble, even if they’re on different sides.

“Local elections are a thousand times more important than what goes on at the national or state level,” Wade said. “It’s nice to get big turnout for a presidential and gubernatorial year. But what goes on in Washington or Indianapolis doesn’t affect us half as much as what goes on local government.”