If you have a spare minute on Tuesday, maybe you could vote in the school board election. Don’t worry; it won’t be crowded.

Polk County voters will have far fewer polling places – 51 instead of the previous 176 – because Polk County election officials decided they could save as much as $100,000 by cutting back. It should work out fine, because hardly anybody shows up to vote on the people who make the decisions about our children’s education.

It’s one of the remarkable aspects of democracy, the way we get so worked up about the candidates at the very top of the political ladder and pay next to no attention to the ones making local decisions.

True, the ones at the top have great influence over our conditions and prospects, but your vote is such a tiny factor. A cynic might even argue that it’s the lobbyists and donors who run things up there, not the politicians and certainly not the voters.

Down at the local level, a handful of people can have enormous clout even in a medium-sized city such as Des Moines. A fair number of concerned citizens recognized that fact and joined in the process; it’s good to see a field of eight candidates contending for three seats on the school board.

Unfortunately, history tells us that only about 10 percent of eligible voters will make the effort to vote. A sudden rush to the polls might not be ideal, either. The real issue is that so few people follow the education news except when something dramatic happens, and so few know anything relevant about the candidates.

Large-scale voting by uninformed people is not much of a goal. A decent turnout by people who have paid attention would be wonderful.

In small school districts, you typically see just enough candidates to fill the openings. Turnout there is not the problem; there’s really not much motivation to vote when all you’re doing is marking the only choices available.

Here we have plenty of candidates but a lack of voters.

Serving on a school board isn’t easy anywhere. The dust-up over school closings is just the latest controversy to turn up the heat on Des Moines school board members. If they’re willing to make the effort to run, put in the time and effort to serve and accept the inevitable criticism, the rest of us should be willing to do our part.

We should pay attention, know the issues and vote.