Just one in five Cook County voters bothered to vote in the last two elections when asked whether to approve property tax increases, allowing a distinct minority of voters to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxpayer-backed bonds and millions more in direct tax increases.

Turnout for the 2025 local elections and the 2026 primary election averaged just 20.1%, with less than 10% of voters weighing in on four of the 20 binding property tax referendums in those elections, a new analysis from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas found.

In the end, voters who did participate in referendums approved 15 and rejected five. Those 15 successful referendums triggered the issuance of $335.5 million in new bonds and tax increases totaling $3.5 million.

The two elections occurred during a time when complaints about property tax increases were at a fever pitch, with some upset homeowners going as far as to burn their bills in protest, Pappas noted.

“People come to my office to complain about high taxes every day, but when they get a chance to make a decision about those taxes at the ballot box, they stay home,” she said. “It makes absolutely no sense.”

The lowest turnout was for a referendum to increase taxes for the Northbrook Rural Fire Protection District, where just 815 of 16,795 eligible voters, or 4.9%, approved a $425,000 tax increase, which will boost taxes for that agency by 14.9%. The owner of a home valued at $350,000 will now pay an extra $106.26 a year in taxes.

The turnout was only slightly better for two referendums staged by the Leyden Fire Protection District. There, less than 9.4% of eligible voters approved issuance of $3 million in bonds for a new fire station and equipment, as well as a tax increase of $730,000. That tax increase amounts to a 24.4% increase in taxes that will cost the owner of a home valued at $350,000 an extra $232.72 a year.

In none of the 20 referendums did more than four in ten voters participate. The highest turnout was in Oak Park, where 40.6% of voters rejected, by a more than four-to-one margin, a Park District proposal to issue $40 million in bonds to build an indoor aquatics center.

Turnout in local elections, referred to as consolidated elections, and non-presidential primaries has historically been very low. During the last nine years, turnout has only topped 50% in the presidential general elections, with even non-presidential general elections falling below that threshold, according to Treasurer’s Office data.

Even when voters do go to the polls, they often skip the often-complicated referendum questions that appear at the bottom of the ballot, the Treasurer’s Office found. Of 1,631 voters who went to the polls within Roselle Fire Protection District boundaries in the 2025 consolidated election, just 504 weighed in on whether to increase the District’s taxes by $375,000. That means 69% of the voters skipped the question.

“Homeowners need to do more than just complain,” Pappas said. “They need to vote.”