When you head to the polls for the August primary, if you’re registered as a member of a political party, chances are you’ll be asked to vote for a precinct or county committee member.
You’ll likely only be given a single name as an option, one you may even recognize as one of your neighbors, in a section on the ballot separated from other elected offices.
“These are different from official state or local positions,” says Sam Stillwell, a Republican committee member from Kansas City, Kansas. The positions, he says, are “grassroots politics at its heart.”
Committee members are positions held within a specific political party, not local government. They’re the people who help drum up support for their chosen party within their precinct or ward, and make decisions about who leads their party and what issues they’d like them to focus on.
In theory, every voting precinct in the metro should have two precinct committee members per political party, with each of them working hard to connect with potential voters in their jurisdiction. That’s the dream anyway, but often not the reality.
“I think a lot of people view it as parking yourself in a position in case you’re needed,” says Laura Loyacono, a Democratic committee member from Kansas City, Missouri. “I believe it’s more important to be proactive.”
‘A major service for the party’
So what does a committee member do? In theory, a lot.
“The work of a precinct person, if done properly, that’ll take up all your time,” says Stillwell.
Stillwell is in his fourth two-year term as the precinct committee member for Ward 13, Precinct 3 — a small, two block chunk of KCK that sits southwest of the Quindaro Bluffs.
He’s spent that time trying to build support for the Republican party in Wyandotte County. He’s done so by getting to know all of his neighbors and knocking on their doors when a Republican runs for office in the area.
“You’ve got to be able to say, ‘In my precinct this is what we do,’” Stillwell explains. “You know the number of (voters) in your precinct, you know how they vote, and if you can deliver your precinct for the candidate, you have done a major service for the party.”
In addition to building support for their party, committee members are often tasked with keeping existing party members informed about their party’s activity in their area and helping residents get connected with elected officials.
In an election year, their responsibilities expand to include things like helping find potential candidates to run for office and assisting with voter registration and education in their precinct.
“In some cases I’ll even tell people who I endorse and give the reasons why,” says Stillwell. “But during elections your job is to turn out the vote. Make sure people in your precinct know there is an election on this day and you need them to come out.”
Across the state line, Democrat Laura Loyacono does much of the same work across all of Ward 22, which is made up of several precincts in the southwest corner of KCMO.
In Kansas, each voting precinct can have two up to committee members per political party, one man and one woman. In Missouri, the amount of space covered by two committee members is based on the populations of their city and county.
Despite having more ground to cover than her Kansas counterparts, Loyacono says it's important for her to stay just as engaged with the voters of her ward, especially in election years.
“We have to stay on top of educating voters and welcoming new people who come in,” says Loyacono. “We can’t grow complacent. I think it’s our job as committee members to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
‘You make the politics’
Even though they're at the bottom of the ballot, committee members play a critical role in shaping the priorities and power of their political party at the state and national level.
“We are there to help fill vacancies,” Loyacono explains. “For county-wide offices, if a state legislator steps down … we would form that replacement committee.”
In cases where county or state elected officials leave office before an election, committee members from their party in the county or district represented by those officials would choose their replacement through an internal election.
The same sort of internal elections are how party leadership at the county, state and national level is selected.
Essentially, when you vote for a committee member, you’re choosing who you want voting on your behalf in these elections.
Loyacono says elected committee people are the “purest form” of a party.
In some states, committee member positions have gained recent attention due to internal division within political parties and the power these positions have to get new leadership and rules.
In Idaho, dissatisfaction with the party's priorities caused a record number of people to run for committee member positions on the Republican ballot in their May primary.
“It’s a basic level, but a very influential level as well,” says Stillwell. “It’s highly important because you make the politics of the party.”
‘Good people are needed’
While they have the potential to wield a sizable influence, the actual requirements for becoming a committee member in Kansas and Missouri are minimal.
In Kansas, you just have to live in the precinct you want to run in, be a registered voter with a political party, and be 18 years old. Missouri has the same rules but adds the requirement that you must have met all prerequisites for at least one year before running.
“If you want to be a precinct person, you can do it,” Stillwell explains. “To have people competing for those positions, that’s the dream, but that's not normally what happens.”
If you want to look up your party's precinct or ward committee member, you can often find this information on your county’s election board website. However, depending on your party affiliation and where you live, don’t be surprised if none are there.
In Kansas City, Kansas, more than 75% of Republican and Democratic committee member positions are empty. In Kansas City, Missouri, Democrats fill all but six positions while nearly half of Republicans are vacant.
In addition to the vacant seats, Loyacono says she often observed committee members not being active within their jurisdictions. It’s what drove her to pursue a committee member position in 2020.
Stillwell says he decided to run for much the same reason. Filled committee member seats are few and far between in his area of KCK, let alone ones filled by active Republican members.
He says most of the voters in his area are ignored by both political parties, and the way to resolve that is to get more people invested at this grassroots level.
But he’s giving up his position this fall to pursue other political endeavors. He hopes others can step up to take his and the many other seats left empty in the city.
“Good people need to realize that they’re needed,” he says. “If you intend to be a long-term resident of wherever you’re laying your head, think about it. Even just supporting the people doing the job. If someone is doing that job, support them.”
