{"id":9092,"date":"2017-08-08T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T15:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=9092"},"modified":"2017-08-06T13:13:33","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T18:13:33","slug":"they-held-an-election-and-no-one-showed-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2017\/08\/they-held-an-election-and-no-one-showed-up\/","title":{"rendered":"They held an election and no one showed up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9093\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" src=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/McIntirePO.jpg\" width=\"740\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/McIntirePO.jpg 740w, http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/McIntirePO-300x121.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px\" \/><br \/>\n<em><strong>September 29, 2015:<\/strong> Outdoor post office boxes (left) replaced the post office building (right) in McIntire in 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Special elections are notoriously low-turnout things. See, for example, the vote <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegazette.com\/subject\/news\/government\/linn-county-voters-stay-with-current-representation-plan-20170801\">last week on supervisor districts in Linn County<\/a>, which existed only because the same resident who lobbied for a vote on reducing the board of supervisors from five to three <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegazette.com\/subject\/news\/government\/local\/linn-county-poised-for-potential-aug-1-representation-plan-election-20170530\">pushed a petition demanding the selection<\/a>. More people signed the petition than turned out to vote!<\/p>\n<p>But also last week, the northern Iowa town of McIntire was supposed to have a vote on changing mayor and council terms of office \u2014 <em>and no one voted<\/em>. Stories: <a href=\"http:\/\/globegazette.com\/news\/local\/voter-turnout-in-mcintire-couldn-t-be-any-lower-for\/article_bc451f97-5137-5d0e-80c7-5e5b0a52a60f.html\">Mason City Globe Gazette<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kwwl.com\/story\/36054912\/no-one-turns-out-for-not-so-special-election-in-iowa-town\">KWWL\/AP<\/a>. The poll workers couldn&#8217;t vote because they were from out of town.\u00a0There are only 70 registered voters total.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been more than six years <a href=\"http:\/\/about.usps.com\/postal-bulletin\/2011\/pb22311\/pdf\/pb22311.pdf\">since the post office in McIntire was closed<\/a> (PDF, p.11), one of a batch shut down in 2011 before Iowa got a <a href=\"https:\/\/govbranstadarchive.iowa.gov\/2011\/12\/iowa-post-office-closures-delayed-after-gov-branstad-calls-for-moratorium\">moratorium on further closures<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>September 29, 2015: Outdoor post office boxes (left) replaced the post office building (right) in McIntire in 2011. Special elections are notoriously low-turnout things. See, for example, the vote last week on supervisor districts in Linn County, which existed only &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2017\/08\/they-held-an-election-and-no-one-showed-up\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[18,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iowa-miscellaneous","category-post-offices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9094,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9092\/revisions\/9094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}