Andrew Friedman

Bloomberg won with 18%

That's 18% of registered voters, not eligible voters. In fact, in yesterday's New York Times, Sam Roberts wrote that Bloomberg received 20,000 fewer votes than he had when he ran in 2001.

Now, don't get me wrong. Bloomberg's margin of victory was impressive. Nonetheless, what does it say about our democracy that so many eligible voters chose not to participate in the election. Maybe these voters didn't much like either Bloomberg or Ferrer, maybe they felt comfortable that Bloomberg would win even without their vote, maybe they're apathetic.

While we'll never know exactly why voter participation was so low, we should all agree that low participation threatens to undermine the democratic concept of majority rule.

At City Council Committee meetings, or at meetings of the full City Council, a quorum is needed before a vote can be taken. The basic premise seems to be that in order for a vote to be legitimate, a majority of eligible participants must actually participate. We should establish similar expectations for elections.

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Posted at 7:10 AM, Nov 14, 2005 in Democracy
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