Local Election Candidates Sound Off on Campaign Tactics

Bill Dustin was scratching his head after the election this past spring.

Dustin ran for one of the three open seats on the Lake in the Hills Village Board of Trustees. He was up against two incumbents and two newcomers during the April 5th election.

Dustin, also a newcomer, bought 50 campaign signs for $350 and had them posted at conspicuous spots around town.

He also went door-to-door in his neighborhood, spending hours shaking hands and passing out fliers. 

And his 24-year-old son, David, wore T-shirts with “Vote Bill Dustin” spelled out in red-and-blue letters while working out at a local health club.

With an endorsement from a local newspaper, things were looking pretty rosy when Dustin left for a two-week vacation at the end of March.  

“That may have been a mistake,” Dustin said, “going on vacation so close to the election.”

Still, he was frequently seen at Village Board meetings.

With all that, he came in last with 308 votes, slightly more than 14 percent of the vote tally, on April 5.

What Works For Campaigning For Local Elections

The population for Lake in the Hills is 28,965. Last election, only 884 voters cast their vote.

Post-election, Dustin learned the county provides lists of those who have voted in the past. That list has been used by others running for office to target the "super voters" or those that vote in every election.

“I’ve come to realize that I could have spoken to 27,000 residents in this town and not one of them a voter in the last election,” Dustin said, adding that if he decides to run again, he’s going to request a list of voters.

Ray Bogdanowski, an incumbent trustee, used the voter history to run for re-election. He got the most votes with 572, which was slightly more than 26 percent of the vote.

Bogdanowski has helped other candidates run for office years before he decided to do so himself.

“I had a list of voters from the last election and I concentrated on them,” Bogdanowski said. “I got this list from the county. You don’t know who they voted for, only if they voted in the last election. 

"And this list tells you how they registered in a primary – Democrat, Republican or independent. … In the political world somebody that votes in every election we call a ‘super voter.’  The super voters are the ones you try and talk to and give campaign literature to.”

Bogdanowski said he paid $217 for a voter history.

Katherine C. Schultz, McHenry County Clerk, said available to political candidates who file campaign-disclosure forms is a five-year history of every voter in their town.  This history, however, is not available to reporters, only to politicians.

The information costs $5 per precinct, $8 per precinct if the candidate wants the information on compact disc.