A chance for Toledoans to vote for chaos in the September 2013 mayoral primary

My Aug 7, 2013 Toledo Talk comment

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Opal finishing in the top two is possible for someone with ninja organizing skills on the Intertubes.

The plan would be to crowdsource over the Web to persuade registered voters who normally never vote to appear at the primary in September and vote for Opal.

Think about the number of people who use Facebook and Twitter in August 2013 compared to August 2009.

It's too late for this year's mayoral primary, but a better option would be to get unregistered Toledoans to register and vote for someone in the primary with no chance of winning, just to gum up the works.

Local politicians, the media, and special interest groups would be apoplectic if enough uncaring voters flash-mobbed the primary and provided Opal with the vote count to finish second. It would be historically hilarious.

Mathematically, it sounds doable.

Only 10,000 to 11,000 votes would be needed for a mayoral candidate to finish second in the September primary and make it to the November general election.

~11K.

Toledo has about 180,000 registered voters, and probably 30,000 to 40,000 more people who are eligible to vote, but who are not registered.

If my arithmetic is close, a candidate needs the support of only about six percent of the registered voters to make it onto the November ballot.

Vote counts for the last two mayoral primaries.

September 2005

Carty Finkbeiner	15283	36.74%
Jack Ford	10910	26.23%

Voter turnout: 22 percent.
Total votes cast for mayor: 41,594.

September 2009

Keith Wilkowski	11214	30.89%
Mike Bell	10543	29.04%

Voter turnout: under 20 percent.
Total votes cast for mayor: 36,307

More voter turnout info from the September 2005 primary:

22% of 189,454 registered Toledo voters = 41,680 Toledoans voted on Tuesday.

According to the 2000 census, Toledo has 231,488 people age 18 and over. Now maybe all wouldn't be eligible to vote for whatever reason, I don't know. Let's say 220,000 people in Toledo are eligible to vote. That means the real voter turnout was at most 19%, which isn't much different than the reported number.

But it's a glaring stat that at least 80% of Toledoans don't care very much about politics, which may not be a bad thing. Maybe politics is severly overrated in today's world. Maybe politics is a leftover relic from a bygone era. Maybe the problem isn't with the 80% who didn't vote but with the 20% who put too much emphasis on politics. Maybe the 80% think the 20% are wasting their time and would be more productive by ignoring politics.

And that's how it should be easy to get someone like Opal to finish at least second in the primary. Target the 80 percent of eligible voters who don't care. Vote for chaos. It would be fun.

Toledo's 2000 census population was 313,000.

Toledo's 2010 census population was 287,000.

With a smaller population of voters, a general lack of interest in this year's election, and Bell, Lopez, McNamara, and Collins splitting the vote up well, it's possible that only about 9,000 votes will be needed for a candidate to finish second in next month's primary.

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