Voter Turnout by City in the Nov. 2, 2021 Election

Voter Turnout by City in the Nov. 2, 2021 Election
(Kurt Metzger, Nov. 6, 2021)
Oakland County, MI – Another off-year election is in the history books, and it is time for a brief look at Voter Turnout across cities in Oakland County.  Voters in 29 of the 30 cities in the county went to the polls on Tuesday.
Voter turnout ranged from a low of 11.6 percent in Hazel Park to a high of 74.7 percent in Lake Angelus.  The chart below shows turnout by community from low to high.
Six of the 29 cities (bars shaded gray) had no real contests, in that they had the exact number of candidates running to fill the positions being sought – including mayors running unopposed or the number of candidates vying for council or commission seats matching the number of openings.
Once again, we saw low voter turnout in Hazel Park, where voters had a both a mayoral and council race.  In fact, all 6 communities without contested elections exceeded the turnout in Hazel Park.
Pontiac had an historic mayor’s race, in addition to contests in each of the 7 council districts, but could only muster a 15.3 percent turnout.
Seven other communities with actual races had turnouts below 20 percent.  It was surprising to see Rochester, Troy and Oak Park in that group.
On the high end was Lake Angelus where a council race brought out 222 of its 297 registered voters.  A council election and water infrastructure millage brought 1,287 (52.4 percent) Pleasant Ridge voters to the polls, while Clarkston, with 3 candidates running for 3 council seats, came in 3^rd place at 40.4 percent.
I will save you another rant on turnout.  Rather, I will ask you to look at your community’s turnout and ask you whether the result makes you proud.
Thank you to Pontiac Community Foundation for sponsoring our 2021 candidate interview series.

 

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