An Iowa farmer ran for public office and didn't vote for himself — here's why
MCINTIRE, Ia. — Randy Richardson last week unwittingly became the new face of voter apathy.
Richardson, 42, is the Iowa farmer who ran unopposed but didn’t receive a single vote in the school board election for the local Riceville district — not even his own.
You’ve heard the old farm adage, “Make hay while the sun shines”?
That’s what kept him from his democratic duty, Richardson said.
He typically scurries from his full-time maintenance job at an organic bean processing plant in Riceville back to his farm in rural McIntire to tend to his crops. He was too busy again this week to meet in person: He had to hurry and bale hay on a gorgeous, sunny September afternoon.
Of course Richardson is in good company — particularly during school board elections that routinely draw the fewest voters. Turnout percentage tends to languish in the single digits. Only 36 people total voted throughout the entire Riceville district.
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I should note with some irony that we’re in the middle of the Iowa caucuses season when it seems no major event — the Iowa State Fair, last weekend’s Cy-Hawk game, etc. — can pass without an injection of campaign politics.
President Obama even returned to Des Moines this week.
What’s more, the Register has been pushing its “Give a Damn, Des Moines” voter turnout drive. We're encouraging capital city millennials (and all their older, more boring neighbors) to get involved by bribing them with beer, bands, food trucks, caucus demos, debates and more beer.
Not only are millennials in short supply where Richardson lives — a swath of land northwest of Riceville that runs up against the Minnesota border. There are only 122 registered voters total who could have cast ballots for him in this specific section of the school district.
McIntire is one of those proverbial wide spots in the road, surrounded by Amish and Mennonite farms full of non-voters. Farm trucks and Amish buggies are the most common traffic. I’m willing to bet that there are more than 122 wind turbines nearby.
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The only obvious political slogan in town was a familiar sign on the wall of the local bar and restaurant, the Pit Stop: “Diapers and politicians must be changed frequently … and for the same reason!”
I interrupted a local woman in the middle of yard work. Jessie Miller has two kids, one in preschool and the other in third grade. I already knew that she didn’t vote; she noticed an online blurb about the zero turnout.
“See how much I paid attention,” Miller shook her head. “I only heard about this on Facebook.”
Perhaps someday we’ll elect our local boards and councils based on a tally of Facebook “likes.”
Richardson even farms the ground next door to Miller.
“I would’ve voted for him!” she said. “He’s an awesome guy.”
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There was no concern or controversy to drive Miller to the polls for the school board election, she explained. Her pet political issue is health care: She’s director of pharmacy, radiology and home medical equipment at the hospital in Cresco. She’s worried about how small, local hospitals increasingly must fight for their economic survival.
Only bad or quirky news seems to bring journalists to town, she mused: When a man in 2008 took a drunken joyride in a combine and rammed into her house, that story ended up on nationally syndicated radio morning show “The Bob & Tom Show.”
I have to admit that I might drive to any corner of Iowa to cover the next good drunken-combine-joyride story.
A few blocks down the street, I spied Carol Willis and her mother, Gladys, in the middle of what struck me as a symbolic little scene: They groomed a downtown park that stood empty and silent.
“A lot of people in town are in their 70s and 80s,” Carol shrugged.
I sympathize with older residents who already have raised families and might not even feel they belong to the true constituency in a school board election — although everybody's pocketbooks still are tied to board decisions.
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Richardson said that he was recruited to run for the board by school staff. He’s “run paper thin the way it is,” he said. But he agreed to help since he has two of his own children in the district, in first and fifth grades.
He's also willing now to be appointed to the board seat, which seems the likeliest next step.
The school board president, Karl Fox, is a fellow beef and swine farmer with three kids in school. He outlined a compelling case that a “perfect storm” of demographics and circumstance conspired to make Riceville's third district a statistical novelty.
The Tuesday after the Labor Day holiday weekend is a horrible time for any election, he said. In a rural area such as this, some people drive 50 miles or more just to get to work. And a community dominated by production agriculture doesn't just understand the adage (make hay while the sun shines) — local farmers must live it.
Also, Fox added, “It’s hard to get the general public to remember when to vote for president."
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Even before this meager turnout the school board had decided to buy a big electronic billboard to mount in front of the school to remind townsfolk about major events.
People here do care, Fox said: Several years ago the town rallied to raise nearly $750,000 to help save their small district.
And while there's the novelty of Richardson's zero-vote district, Riceville didn't see the worst overall turnout per capita.
One of the lowest I found was Winterset: Only 29 people cast ballots, representing not even 1 percent of registered voters.
“I would say everybody was kind of surprised,” said James Baur, the newly elected school board president (and the third farmer quoted in this column).
"I’ve told my kids," he said. "vote every election you can. Voter apathy frustrates me more than anything in this world.”
Amen, James. Political rhetoric at every level is full of pronouncements about what's best for kids and families. And yet the elections that pertain most directly to our kids are those that we tend to avoid?
Yes, in case you wondered, I did practice what I preach. I voted in last week's school election. I was among 166 voters in the Ballard district south of Ames.
I slapped the red, white and blue "I voted" sticker on my chest and marched out of the precinct bursting with pride.
None of the major news networks was there to conduct an exit poll or to ask why I gave a damn, but that was OK.