Election Day has come and gone, and the results are not too surprising.

In the city of Syracuse, Democrats rule supreme. They won six out of seven of the common council positions up for election and clinched the city auditor position for a second term.

Each of the six common councilor incumbents running under party endorsement in Syracuse won back their seats for the next two years except 1st District Councilor Jake Barrett, who lost to Republican Joseph Carni in a tight race. Carni will be the only Republican to serve on the normally Democratically-dominated council.

The new Republican in the council does not come as much of a surprise, either. Joseph Carni ran in 2013 against Barrett and came within 38 votes of winning his seat. The Republican win is certainly a change, but it will not affect the overwhelmingly Democratic influence in Syracuse city politics.

But who cares? Apparently not most of Syracuse. Onondaga County Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny estimates that a little more than 25 percent of registered voters in Onondaga County turned out to the polls yesterday, according to Syracuse.com. This statistic sticks to a recent trend that voter turnout remains dismally low in off-year elections, considering voter turnout was 27 percent in 2013 and 26 percent in 2011.

Despite Carni’s win, low voter turnout reflects a favorable political climate for Democratic incumbents. With less people caring about the issues, they tend to vote in the same officials, sometimes picking candidates only on the basis of their Democratic affiliation, because they do not pay attention to alternative political voices.

At a campaign event last month, longtime Green Party activist Howie Hawkins addressed party loyalty and its effects on local elections. Lack of knowledge about the issues, Hawkins said, is the biggest problem third party candidates face, while “zombie Democrats” will vote their whole row without knowing the candidates or what they stand for.

There is truth to the powers of party loyalty. Affiliating with a party allows a general expectation, regardless of an individual platform, of where candidates sympathize.

However, this idea is a reversal of the notion that low voter turnout in turn helps Republicans instead. This was certainly the explanation for the overwhelming number of Republican victories during the 2014 midterm election on a national basis.

In this case of one of the lowest voter turnout elections in recent memory, Republicans won primarily because many Democrats didn’t make it to the polls. In contrast, voter turnout was higher in contested states, or “battleground” states, in which Republicans won decisively.

Syracuse is a special case, considering it has a longstanding Democratic majority and a relatively low Republican presence. But low voter turnout represents a greater issue at hand: lack of knowledge about the issues. Without paying close attention, voters either stick to the blue ticket or abstain from voting altogether.

It could be said that Syracuse residents may want Democrats after all. However, failure to make it to the polls implies general apathy for the political process. Rather than relying on chance and an assumption that Democrats will stay in power, a stronger vote for Democrats will indicate to blue office-holders that voters approve of their performance in city hall.

Keely Sullivan is a senior broadcast and digital journalism and French dual major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at kasull02@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @specialksully.

Published on November 4, 2015 at 11:37 pm