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Low turnout at St. Louis County polls for Missouri Municipal Election Day

Elections officials predicted less than 20% of their 750,000 registered voters would participate.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — St. Louis County election officials predicted a low turnout for the Missouri Municipal Elections on Tuesday.

They expected less than 20% of their registered voters to show up to the polls.

Sandra Horton, Rose Clark and Belinda Boston fulfilled their duty.

"I wanted to take my part in helping to elect people that want to work for our community and make things better," Horton said.

"It's important for the people that died for us to vote," Belinda Boston said.

They hoped to see more voter turnout for Missouri Municipal Election Day.

"We should vote. It's our right," Clark said.

"Even if it's small or it's big or whatever it's all important," Boston said.

"We need everyone to be involved," Horton said.

St. Louis County Director of Elections Eric Fey says it's at the expense of taxpayer money.

"We spend about a million dollars on it and only about 20% of the people come out and participate," Fey said.

There are about 750,000 registered voters in the County. 

Fey said turnout is consistently low for municipal elections, despite the direct impact these decisions have on their communities.

"These April elections every year are your city council members your aldermen, your school board members, your fire district issues, so it's all these local things that really affect your day-to-day life," Fey said.

More than 70,000 people showed up to the polls on election day and there were about 13,000 absentee ballots cast.

"Just a relatively small amount of voters are going to make decisions for everybody else," Fey said.

"We get a lot of negativity, we get stuck on negative things and the problems, but then people don't want to find a solution to fix them," Horton said.

"I show my kids I'm doing it, I get out and do it, being an example," Clark said.

Fey said they send out sample ballots ahead of time so voters know what will be on the ballot before they vote.

Also, now in St. Louis County, people can go to any polling place to vote.

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