The voters of Utah County are probably right: city elections really don't matter.

That must be why they don't go to the polls in large numbers. Any warm body in a city council or mayoral seat must be about as good as any other. There's not much philosophical difference between them, no grand liberal or conservative agendas -- just a handful of local folks who aren't much different from any of the other local folks on the ballot.

Oh, sure, some are a little smarter, some a little dumber, but eligible voters don't seem to worry too much about this.

With incomplete results, it appears that something in the neighborhood of 10 or 12 percent of voters turned out countywide. Pleasant Grove, Highland and Springville each had about 8 percent. Provo had 7 percent. On the high end at press time, Mapleton had logged in at 24 percent with 868 total votes cast. Elk Ridge showed 18 percent with 225 votes.

What this means, of course, is that a small minority of each community -- often the people with an agenda -- will control the tenor of the governing body. This has its positives. Voting keeps such citizens occupied and feeling that they're doing something important. It may prevent them from breaking into their neighbor's medicine cabinets.

It also means that local elections will be skewed, but -- oh, well -- there are probably few consequences from a municipal election gone awry that can't be managed later by the people. If an issue comes up that really matters, voters can make their voice heard then.

The greatest influence over local government happens when a bunch of people get worked up over an issue that reaches to their own backyards, and they storm city hall with pitchforks.

For this reason, there is little danger that any maverick politician, smart or dumb, will run too far amok. There are city attorneys to provide legal advice, professional planning staffs to make recommendations for orderly development, newspapers to let people know when shenanigans are in the works and state laws to scare officials into good behavior.

So why bother to vote in a municipal electionfi It seems rather pointless when you really stop to think about it. Perhaps we should move to a lottery system in which city representatives are chosen at random. It would be about as good as having them chosen by 7, 15 or even 24 percent of registered voters.

Better yet, how about electing a single person to make all the decisions solofi This would save enormous amounts of time and money, and it might help voters remember the name of their representative. Of course, it would look a little like a dictatorship, but at least the dictator would have been duly elected.

Despite the efficiency of such suggestions, however, it is cases like Eagle Mountain that give us pause. That community's experience with elected officials would energize a junkyard dog to go to the polls and leave a paw print. It has suffered one disaster after another in the management of city affairs. Or take Lehi, where internecine squabbling has made for some entertaining but absurd theater as the entrenched "old money" does battle with a rising tide of newcomers.

The life and times of such cities should serve as a warning to all those who just couldn't find the time on Tuesday to do their civic duty.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.

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