Local elections can be rigged against local voters. I wish I could find the link now, but I recall reading an article recently (was it in The Atlantic?) about how one American town with a huge African-American population was unable to get a single African-American councilman elected, because back in the heyday of segregation the local whites had managed to do some gerrymandering-like trick that made most local citizens’ votes now count for nothing.
You can also see dirty tricks at local council meetings, where those in authority abuse the meeting’s rules of order to quickly shut down anyone speaking up about problems that those in authority don’t want addressed.