Results tagged “voterturnout”

Now that he's going to be mayor for another four years, Mayor Bloomberg has been reaching out to the Democrats. Yesterday, he had coffee with Public Advocate-elect Bill de Blasio (their klatsch is pictured at left) but City Comptroller-elect John Liu declined to meet with Bloomberg, saying he was too busy. But the NY Times points out Liu later said, "A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City."

Yesterday, mayoral candidates Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Comptroller Bill Thompson campaigned with just days away until the election. And they made sure to encourage voters to get out the vote: NY1 reports that Bloomberg went to a "get out of the vote" rally in Queens while Thompson said, "This is all about turnout and really a question of who comes out and votes. So I think he's concerned, not just because his votes may stay home, I think he's concerned about the change that people in New York City are indicating all across the city. They'd like to see a new mayor, they'd like to see change in City Hall."

Yesterday's runoff elections saw a total of 228,000 ballots cast, which the Post calls a "record low." Based on estimates that the runoffs would cost the city $14.4 million, that's about $63 per vote. Another way to cut the numbers: That's 7.3% of registered Democrats.

While voter turnout for Tuesday's primary elections was really low—the NY Times suggests it could be the "lowest in modern New York City history"—one group did use their electoral muscle. In another article, the Times reports that aside from John Liu's 38% showing in the Comptroller race, "Asian-American candidates won Democratic primaries in three City Council districts on Tuesday... Of the 51 Council districts, 32 had primaries on Tuesday. Turnout in the three districts where Asian-Americans won was among the highest in the city: 17 to 18 percent, compared with a citywide average of 11 percent, according to the Board of Elections." Margaret Chin (pictured) defeated incumbent Alan Gerson for Council District 1; Yen Chou won the primary for Liu's old Council seat in Flushing; and Korean-American Kevin Kim won Tony Avella's old Council seat in northeast Queens. Hunter College sociologist Margaret Chin (no relation to the pol) said, "It’s significant for the whole population to see all these Asian-Americans taking political roles for the first in public. The West Coast broke this barrier close to two decades ago."

It's believed yesterday's presidential election had the biggest voter turnout since the 1960 election: American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate director Curtis Gans "predicted that as many as 135 million people would cast votes - 64.8 percent of those eligible to vote, compared with 67 percent in 1960."