Pillsbury Mayor Darrel Brudevold said voter turnout in the city's primary election usually is fairly high.

"I dare say a half-dozen people usually make it to the polls," he said. That represents about a quarter of the residents in the Barnes County farming community, in southeastern North Dakota.

But on June 10, no one showed up. Not even those on the ballot.

Brudevold ran for unopposed for re-election. His wife, Ruth, and Dan Lindseth faced no challengers for their alderman seats.

"Everybody has got a job, and they're busy," Brudevold said. "It just worked out that nobody seemed to go down there to the polls."

Only about 11 people live in Pillsbury proper, and the remainder of the residents live on farms outside the city. There is no precinct in town, so residents must drive about 12 miles to neighboring Sibley to cast their votes.

"Basically, we don't have anything here except a bar that serves a really good meal and a beauty shop and a post office," Brudevold said.

His wife runs the beauty shop and is the town's postmaster. Ruth said she also was too busy with business to make it to the polls.

"I was working," she said.

Her husband said he intended to vote, but he had crops to tend.

"I was busy, and I couldn't get away - I had crops to spray before the rains came," said Brudevold.

He had assumed at least one person would show up to vote.

"If just one person would have voted, we'd have all won by one vote," he said.

Brudevold, who has been mayor for a dozen years and an alderman eight years before that, said he'll ask state election officials about what to do next, but he believes little will change on the five-member body.

Barnes County Auditor Ed McGough said those in office now can stay there and they may appoint someone, including themselves, to the jobs until the next election.

"I presume things will stay the same," Brudevold said. "We're just a little village, and when you're elected to one of those jobs, well, once you get it, you got it."

Council members are each paid $48 a year, a good portion of which goes for doughnuts at the meetings or gas to get there, he said.

"We meet when there's business to take care of, which isn't often," he said. "I'd guess we meet about five times a year."

In Pillsbury, "our grass is always mowed and our streets are plowed." An annual fundraiser and raffle, along with a $25 special property assessment takes care of that, he said.

Brudevold said he may be the only mayor anywhere without a gavel. Attendance at the city's meetings usually is lackluster at best, he said.

"Not everybody usually makes it to the meetings, so it really doesn't get out of hand," the mayor said. "The only time we really get people to show up is when we want to raise taxes - then everybody shows up."