Yesterday I voted early at the county election office. Three boards are up for election in my area, one of which is an uncontested race for Lincoln Land Community College Board.
Four people are running for three positions on the Springfield park board. Apparently, they decided not to ask voters if the board should be elected by districts rather than city-wide.
The SJR editorialized that breaking up the park board into districts would make it difficult for the two parties to recruit enough qualified candidates from each district (I can't provide a link because the SJR online search function is useless). First, it's disappointing that they believe only people recruited by either party should run, but the current system guarantees that will always be the case.
When the board had a position open for appointment last year, well over a dozen people applied and many of them were qualified. Obviously, there's interest in serving, but not much interest in running. One reason is that running effectively in a city-wide election is very expensive and labor intensive. It's hard to get media attention for such a small race and there's not much time to talk with voters after the holidays. It discourages good candidates from running and guarantees that the park board will always be controlled by whichever party is better organized that year.
Smaller district races would encourage more candidates, especially ones who don't depend on either party for support. The current system works very well for party organizations that view units of local government primarily as a source of patronage jobs and contracts. The Republicans who currently run the park board know that they have a better chance of maintaining control if they run city-wide rather than by districts, some of which would have to be majority Democratic.
Speaking of using local government as a source of patronage, both parties had a full slate of candidates for Capital Township. Township government is a bigger payoff both for those who serve on the board and in the amount of money they get to hand out to voters.