ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - A Kansas City, Mo. area political expert calls it "depressing." Only one person showed up to vote in this week's municipal election in the town of Randolph.
Randolph is completely surrounded by Kansas City, has only a few streets and 37 registered total voters, according to the Clay County Clerk's office. Of those 37, some are active and some are inactive.
Voters were asked to choose a new mayor and new aldermen. Alan Long, the mayoral candidate, received one vote – that's a turnout percentage of 2.7. Susan McRill and Paul Smith received one vote each for alderman – although voters could have chosen as many as three aldermanic candidates.
"It's kind of depressing," said Allan Katz, a former Ambassador to Portugal who's also a distinguished professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City. "I mean, when you think about what some people have suffered through in this country, forget about the rest of the world, just to have the right to vote.
"I don't know why people don't participate at greater level. I think there are efforts to do it, to encourage them to do so."
Katz teaches a course at UMKC that, as a prerequisite, requires voter registration. Those who don't, fail the course.
It's unclear who submitted the single vote in Randolph, but it's probable that means not even the poll workers or all the candidates themselves voted.
For comparison, overall turnout in the nearby Clay County, Mo. for Tuesday's election was 13 percent.
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