With Lake County Commissioner Daniel P. Troy recently bringing up discussion about the costs for special elections, it made me think about why some elections are called special.

Literally, it's because a special election isn't regularly scheduled like a primary in May or in November when they are called a general election. With no candidates on the ballot in Lake County on May 5, there would be no election without entities calling for a special election for issues. Four did, so 108 of 215 precincts will have one issue on which to vote.

While it is special that our society gives people the right to vote, it don't always appear that voters believe that privilege is special.

Many times, you'll see some elections with voter turnouts of 20 percent or fewer. Why is that? People love to complain about how terrible things are or how bad politicians may be or how they disagree with how their community government or schools are run.

But what do so many people do? Nothing. I think many people just like to complain about things as a way to converse. For example, "It's too cold today" or "I hate winter" or "Traffic was terrible this morning". These are things we cannot change.

But for things we can change, it is far too often that people are apathetic toward making their voice heard. To me, that is strange in a state where people can now cast an absentee ballot by mail if they don't have time to go vote.

Those involved in the recent 2008 presidential election were pleased in some areas where voter turnout reached 80 percent.

Why isn't it at least that high at every election?

-- John Arthur Hutchison