City Paper took an interesting look in this week's paper at whether it's fair to elect a Democratic mayoral candidate (read: the likely winner in a May general election) with the small mandate the primary's winner is likely to have.
Now, recent history suggests that good turnout for a contested mayoral primary is about 50 percent (though, in 1999, only 40 percent of voters came to the polls). If we do that well this time around, the number of people who will actually vote on May 15 comes down to about 365,000. Since there are five candidates running, it's very possible that the winner will garner something like 25 percent of the vote — about 90,000 people, which is less than the population of a single City Council district.
Reporter Doron Taussig's math says it will only take about 1 in 12 Philadelphians, or 8 percent of the city's voting population, to elect John Street's replacement.
More:
City Paper.net
