What Local Office Vacancies Say About Civic Engagement in Philadelphia

In wards across Philadelphia, ballots for the 2025 Municipal Primary Election included positions for which no candidates were listed at all. Offices such as “Judge of Election” or “Inspector of Election” were simply left blank on the ballot for Philadelphia County. This was not a printing error. These were real vacancies — seats in the local political structure that no one chose to run for.

“That signifies that this is an office that no one’s interested in,” says Brian Elmore, a committeeperson and treasurer for Philadelphia’s 15th Ward. “Which, from an election perspective, is curious, because you’re like: Well, this is an office that allegedly matters, so why is nobody applying to be in it?”

Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein says this pattern is not new, nor is it worsening: “I have not seen a noteworthy increase in empty ballot slots or uncontested races.” In fact, he noted that more people filed to run for judge or inspector of election in 2025 compared to 2021. But despite the uptick in filings, some races still ended without candidates since many were concentrated in certain neighborhoods — often wealthier areas — leaving gaps in others, as Elmore explained.

The positions that go unfilled most often tend to be at the precinct level. Many Philadelphians may not realize the importance of local offices — or what happens when those positions go unfilled. Vacant committee positions weaken neighborhood organizing. Unfilled positions on the Board of Elections strain the city’s ability to run smooth elections.

While the Commissioner’s office appoints people to fill some of these positions, especially when no one has been elected through a write-in, the vacancies raise an essential civic question: What does it say when no one wants to serve?

The barriers to running go beyond apathy

Experts and civic leaders argue that these vacancies don’t necessarily signal an absence of concern or volition — they reveal a lack of support, information, and access.

“Running for office is incredibly difficult,” says Andrew McGinley, Vice President for Policy at the Committee of Seventy. “It takes a lot of money, takes a lot of time and personal commitment, and not everyone’s ready to do that.”

The petition process alone can create difficulties for potential candidates, who have to collect valid signatures and navigate legal filings. According to Bluestein, candidates can be disqualified if they do not file a statement of financial interest or do not submit the correct number of valid signatures.

While hyperlocal roles such as Judge of Election and Committeeperson only require ten signatures and minimal campaign financing, an additional barrier to entry is that the roles themselves are poorly understood.

“A lot of people don’t realize that the folks who check you in when you go to vote are actually elected officials themselves,” McGinley notes. He later added, “If you don’t understand government, you don’t understand what the jobs do, that can sort of breed voter apathy.”

Organizations like the Committee of Seventy have increased their educational efforts in recent years, hosting webinars and translating materials on how local government works. “We spent a lot of time in the last five years or so, working to educate people about poll workers, what they do, how you get elected into those roles,” says McGinley. Their popular “How Philly Works” guide has been printed in multiple languages and distributed widely.

Still, McGinley sees a civic knowledge gap: “There’s a generational gap of people who did not really get civic education.” Jasmine Sessoms, CEO of Firm 1968 and President of Center 1968, which works to promote voting and training women to run for office, agrees that this education is crucial to instilling a sense of civic responsibility at a young age.

“You can’t just come during election times and ask people to vote,” she says, “Voting has to be a part of your culture. It has to be in your mind. It just has to be a part of what you do. And how do you do that? You instill it day to day to day. You don’t just come the last two months of an election.”

Her theory for the rise in ballot vacancies? A generational shift. “I live in the northwest of Philadelphia, where the 50th, the 10th and the 22nd are all housed,” Sessoms says. “Ten years ago, this was the highest voting block in Philadelphia. They’re starting to die, unfortunately. And as they’re being replaced with younger voters, that voter education isn’t instilled in them.”

Brian Elmore agrees that “it’s kind of a broken system.” He adds that it’s not just age that matters, but demographic differences: “The more active wards are the whiter and wealthier neighborhoods, so you have more active committee people in those neighborhoods.” However, Commissioner Bluestein maintains that he has not observed any noteworthy trends in candidate participation by neighborhood or ward.

Elmore notes that roles like Judge of Elections are difficult and poorly compensated: $205 for working on Election Day. “It’s mostly volunteer labor.”

“People are really tired and they’re not voting. They’re not engaged on either side of the aisle,” says Sessoms. “I think this last election really damaged the Black community’s trust in America and the voters.”

From civic fatigue to civic culture

Regardless of local vacancies, interest in local politics hasn’t completely died out entirely — quite the opposite. Sessoms says the desire to run for local office remains strong, especially among Black women: “Our center is consistently inundated with Black women wanting to run, wanting to take place.”

McGinley has noticed a similar energy. “I do think that there is a strong desire for people to get engaged. They’re just right now trying to figure out exactly how to best do that.” Elmore adds that while he hasn’t seen a “tidal wave” of engagement in recent years, “It’s ticked up since Trump won in 2016.”

So how can we bridge the gap between interest and action? First, “Put civics back in schools,” says Sessoms.

Grassroots organizations are also powerful tools for recruitment and engagement. In addition to the Committee of Seventy, groups like Young Involved Philadelphia are working to inspire young people through civic education and volunteer programs. The difficulty, as Elmore notes, is that these groups don’t often get a seat at the table with elected officials.

“I’d love for local elected officials who are doing good work to talk about it publicly and show places like Protect Democracy and Committee of Seventy,” says Elmore. “Help them amplify their message, because they’re great at what they do.”

Some argue that greater systemic change is needed. Elmore, who serves as a committeeperson, believes “we have too many elections.” For positions like Judge of Elections and poll worker, appointments made by the Commissioner’s office would suffice, rather than bloating the ballot with unnecessary races.

“We have too many elected officials,” he says. “Everybody’s burnt out.”

Elmore also believes that Democratic party leadership needs to change. “You need to have the party support candidates who are exciting to actual people,” he says. When national leadership isn’t inspiring, of course people are not going to want to engage on a local level.

McGinley proposes that there are a number of channels to community involvement that don’t involve an electoral process.

“You don’t have to run for office to engage,” he says. “There are a multitude of ways that you can serve your community that don’t require you to run for office, like being part of your RCO, your registered community organization, or your neighborhood association.”

For McGinley, small civic acts matter, and he’s noticed that there is ambition among the public to get involved. “If you go to City Council, you’ll have a session where there could be 100 people signed up to give public comment,” he says.

The challenge now is to give people the tools, the pathways, and the encouragement to step up. As Sessoms puts it, “We need to invest in our young people.”

“There is never a right time to run for office,” says Sessoms. “It will never be a perfect time. You will never have enough money. So don’t let those things kind of deter you. If you really want to do it and you have the heart for service, do go jump.”