Actually I take that sort of thing as a sign of machine politics. When elections don't coincide with the ones that bring a lot of people into the booths, then the machine that's most effective at getting voters to the booths wins, unless the election becomes non-normal (e.g. a lot of people have a reason to get rid of someone, see below for two local examples).
Local elections, whenever they're held, are a real problem; unless I have real knowledge about a candidate I don't vote. My parents and I all pool our information together (e.g. my father knows which county commissioner is an idiot, and I, oh, research judges) and even then there are a lot of offices we don't vote on. And some run unopposed, e.g. our county clerk is very competent.
But that doesn't mean this is all a generally useless exercise, if an abusive public administrator, or a sheriff who doesn't play well with others is up for reelection, at least where I live they will be sent back home to spend more time with their families, or eventually to Federal prison in the case of the administrator.
This, I believe, is actually always the case. While swing voters decide a few elections, most elections are decided by how motivated each party's voters are to actually get to the polls.
A great quantitative example of this is in the (somewhat dry) "Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party" by Michael Holt. While it talks about a very different time, the demonstration that the party that got the most of its voters to vote always won was pretty convincing.
Local elections, whenever they're held, are a real problem; unless I have real knowledge about a candidate I don't vote. My parents and I all pool our information together (e.g. my father knows which county commissioner is an idiot, and I, oh, research judges) and even then there are a lot of offices we don't vote on. And some run unopposed, e.g. our county clerk is very competent.
But that doesn't mean this is all a generally useless exercise, if an abusive public administrator, or a sheriff who doesn't play well with others is up for reelection, at least where I live they will be sent back home to spend more time with their families, or eventually to Federal prison in the case of the administrator.