Abstract: This paper attempts to answer this question： Why are the turnout rates in urban community （shequ） officer elections surprisingly high even when electorates are generally apathetic to elections? Our examination of the 2006 community elections in Shanghai discovered a relationship between high turnout rates and multiple votes by a single person. First， it is the household that is the voting unit， not the individual. Usually one household has only one member who actually does the voting. Second， unrestricted proxy voting allows the activists to possess many ballots， a situation that has resulted from the orchestrated game by the government， CPC General Branch， Residents’ Committees （RCs or jumin weiyuanhui）， activists， and electorates. Compared with villagers’ selfadministration， urban community elections lack vitality. The cause of this difference lies in the purpose of the election： A Villagers’ Committee Election is based on distributive interests and for the purpose of electing a manager； whereas a Residents’ Committee Election is based on maintenance interests and for the purpose of electing a gatekeeper. The residents’ political apathy is in fact determined by the community’s interest structure， and is further strengthened by the community election system.

Key words: community election, distributive interest, maintenance interest, political apathy, voting turnout rates