Is There a Connection Between Low Voter Turnout and Empty Houses?

How does Plainfield's foreclosure rate slant voter turnout numbers? 

That's what one reader asked after reading an About Town item last week on Plainfield's mid-term election voter turnout, which was a lukewarm 45.9 percent. 

The reader reasoned that, with so many houses empty, a lot of voters registered here would not be voting. And that would skew the percentage downward. 

I thought it a very astute observation. So I called Will County Clerk Nancy Schultz Voots for her take on the possible link between a lame economy and lame voter turnout. 

"I thought it seemed kind of low, too," she said. 

But Voots wasn't so sure the empty homes are the reason. 

As soon as a voter registers in a new location, a data base at the Illinois State Board of Elections immediately strikes them from the previous rolls. So, if a family is forced to give up their home to the bank and registered to vote in a new location, they wouldn't be listed as an eligible voter here. 

This begs the question: How likely is it that families in financial crisis and in transitional situations will make registering to vote a priority? 

Election officials are doing more and more to make it easy, Voots said. For the first time this year, voters could cast ballots early without giving a reason. People can register to vote when they get a driver's license, at schools, banks and churches. They can even register online at the county clerk's Web site, she said. 

"Most of the time when you see people go to the trouble of registering, they are the ones who show up to vote," Voots said. 

This year, the county clerk's office sent voters not only the address of their polling place, but a map to it and a sample ballot. 

"We saw people showing up at the polls with these pieces of paper," she said. 

Cool. 

But the mystery of Plainfield's missing voters lingers on. 

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misspelled the last name of the county clerk as Vootz.