Well, another election is upon us, with the City of Lowell once again rolling out the red carpet to make it easier for people to vote, especially vote early. And once again, those efforts seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Elections Director Will Rosenberry reports that as of this morning, a whopping 123-people have showed up at the Senior Center to cast in-person early voting ballots. That option has been available since Saturday and will run through this coming Friday, September 5th.

The mail voting numbers are even less inspiring, as Rosenberry tells InsideLowell that 158-mail in ballots have been requested to date. Lest you think there’ll be some mad dash of late mail in votes, that 158 is the number of ballots requested, not returned. Oh, and the deadline to request a ballot through the mail has come and gone, so what you see is what you get on that front.

Given that Lowell has 77,125 registered voters this cycle, the whopping 281 eligible voters opting to vote early translates to .0036, or less than .4% participating through the weeks-long early voting process.

Let me repeat that. That’s not less than 4%. It’s less than point-four of a percentage point.

The math gets a little more “exciting” when you figure there are only three districts holding a preliminary election. Districts 3, 7 and 8 contain 28,847 registered voters. That brings us to .0097, still less than 1%.

Forget the proverbial tree falling in the forest and nobody being around to hear it. When it comes to early voting in local elections, there is no forest and the tree that fell is more of a sapling.

Which begs the question; why do we keep doing this?

Spare me the “you can’t put a price tag on elections and freedom” line. Yes, there is.

There is a price tag and there is also a law of diminishing returns. Combined, that price tag and the fact large masses of people simply don’t care to vote early (vote at all?) in municipal races frankly makes it not worth the effort, because I’d venture to guess that 99.99% of the 281 people who are voting early would have shown up to vote next Tuesday anyway.

Face it folks. No matter how much money is poured into “engaging” the electorate, the overwhelming majority of that electorate is not going to vote, especially in municipal elections. And those who do, are going to do it the old fashioned way; on election day.

While Lowell’s turnout numbers may disappoint you, take comfort in the fact the Mill City’s municipal election participation rate dwarfs surrounding communities, which often see single digit percentage turnout in their Town Hall offices.

As that other old saying goes, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

When it comes to early and mail voting in Lowell’s municipal elections, that horse isn’t even making it to the Merrimack River.