With the primary election for Butler County commissioner a mere one week away, the two nominations allotted to each political party could go to any of the 14 candidates — 10 Republicans and four Democrats.

Given the relative low turnout for spring primaries, every vote cast will have added significance.

Consider the results of the previous commissioners primary in 2011, in particular the Republican primary. There were six Republicans on the ballot back then, and the top vote-getter, Dale Pinkerton, was an incumbent.

Of the 15,946 Republican votes cast, only 856 separated first place from fifth. Pinkerton and Bill McCarrier claimed the party’s two nominations. In November they won majority control of the county government — along with the votes to privatize the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, build the government center annex and form the past three years’ county budgets.

Pinkerton got 5,798 votes in May 2011; McCarrier got 5,368. But what might be overlooked is the significant fact that for every one of the 15,946 Republican votes, more than twice as many registered Republicans — 43,435 according to Election Bureau data — didn’t bother to vote.

Democrats didn’t do any better. With 43,637 registered Democrats in Butler County, only 8,906 went to the polls in May 2011 — a turnout of 20.4 percent compared with 26.8 percent GOP turnout.

For both parties, that’s a landslide for “who cares?”

Next Tuesday’s GOP ballot bears the names of 10 candidates — four more than in the previous primary. A crowded ballot means candidates must work harder for every vote. And if the Republican voters follow the 2011 pattern, scattering their votes evenly across the entire field, it could mean the two winning candidates will advance to the fall election with fewer than 4,000 votes — in a county with a population of 186,000.

To put it even more simply, a handful of voters — about 2 percent of the county’s population — will decide who gets the authority to privatize the next Sunnyview, build the next annex and parcel out the next budget of nearly $190 million.

McCarrier and Pinkerton did not seek re-election. The two candidates who closely trailed them in 2011, Jeff Smith and Kim Geyer, are on the ballot again. The eight other Republican candidates are James Butler, Jim Keffalas, Mark Lux, Lisa Metcalfe, Bob O’Neill, Leslie Osche, Larry Thompson and Justin Trainor.

Each has skills, experience, vision and ethics that would guide them as a commissioner. Their decisions will impact our lives and pocketbooks for years to come. And yet, “who cares?” is likely to win anyway. By a landslide. Once again.

That’s unfortunate. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It takes only a few minutes to vote. There is never a long wait during the primary elections. The polls are open next Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

There’s a week left before the vote — ample time for every voter to look over the candidates and decide which two best represents his or her interests and the interests of Butler County.

The decision is too important for us to entrust it to the two percent who showed up for the previous commissioners primary.