Where were all the angry voters Tuesday?

Illinois politics have become a punch line on late-night talk shows.

One former governor's in prison while another's been indicted and impeached.

The state budget deficit climbed to $12.8 billion.

None of that was enough to drive voters to the polls Tuesday.

About a quarter of the registered voters in Cook and DuPage counties turned out to vote, while only 15 percent bothered to cast ballots in Kane County. Statewide numbers remain unknown, but Illinois Board of Elections officials estimated it will likely fall around the record low of 25 percent.

"I would say abysmal," said Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. "Particularly considering the things that have happened in this state in the last 18 months."

Election officials, watchdogs and others place plenty of blame, from apathy to partisan primary balloting to party leaders' preferences for low turnout.

Most point the finger at the date of the primary, the earliest in the state's history.

"Everybody knew it was not a good idea, except those who wanted to protect the incumbents, to move the primary date from late March to early February," said Patrick Collins, former head of the Illinois Reform Commission.

"When I woke up Tuesday morning and saw snow coming down, I thought it was celestial verification that it was a bad idea."

An early February primary protects incumbents by shortening the primary campaign. The campaign season is interrupted by the holidays and then candidates come out sprinting in early January. Collins said fundraising and name recognition are affected by the "truncated" race. His commission recommended a primary in June, when state lawmakers have finished the legislative session.

"Elections should be a referendum on performance, not a preperformance test," he said.

State Rep. Elaine Nekritz, a Northbrook Democrat, is proposing legislation to move the primary back to the third Tuesday of March.

"I introduced a bill last year to move it to August, which other states do," she said. "That didn't move so I thought I'd moderate."

House Speaker Michael Madigan's spokesman Steve Brown said his boss is aware of the proposal and Madigan is "open to discussion." The date was changed ahead of the 2008 primary in an effort to boost President Obama's White House bid. That year, 41 percent of the state voted in the primary, records show.

Primaries in nonpresidential race years have been on the decline as voters have become leery of declaring their allegiance to political parties, some believe.

"More and more voters are independent," said Lake County Clerk Willard Helander. "They take pride at being independent and analyzing a candidate and not being a marching soldier for a party. It offends them to pick a party."

The nonpresidential primary years also have trouble attracting voters for another reason.

"The bottom line is star power," said Paul Green, director of the Institute for Politics at Roosevelt University. "There wasn't an Obama running, or a Daley running where you have real energy for or against them."

Other theories include voters being burned out after all the hoopla of the 2008 presidential race, or that voters feel overwhelmed by all the problems plaguing the state, or that there wasn't the usual large volume of ballot questions to draw voters to the polls.

"Aggressive reform in ethics and campaign finance should favorably impact turnout," argued Jean Kaczmarek, co-chairwoman of the DuPage Chapter of the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project. "People demand action, not words."

But Collins is not so sure that's the case. His reform commission's report was warmly received by a slew of politicians who publicly lauded the proposals contained on its pages, but have done little to enact them.

"I have to say at some point it's on us as voters," he said. "It didn't get enacted because there wasn't enough pressure. This primary was a subpar performance by the voters in terms of just coming out. We can blame that on a lot of things, but there are people who die for the right to vote and I think we're taking it more and more for granted. Folks have got to participate or we shouldn't complain about the government we have."