Much is being made of the "low" turnout, but in fact more people voted in Thursday's City of Memphis special election than voted in the 2003 municipal election, when there was a full ballot that included some heated City Council races where candidates spent lots of money (not least the District 5 slugfest between Carol Chumney, Jim Strickland and George Flinn).
There were more than 109,000 votes (about 5,000 more than in 2003) for an election that was not set until the end of July, and which did not have its final ballot complete until about one month before the election. Most political observers in Memphis also believe the voter rolls are greatly bloated, so the 25 percent turnout figure most likely fails to capture the the true percentage of eligible registered voters still remaining in Memphis. Indeed, the latest census figures show that there are about 467,000 people in Memphis over the age of 18, and the voter rolls in Memphis show 423,049 people registered on the current voter rolls -- and nobody really believes that 90 percent of all adults in Memphis have registered to vote here.
No question, voter turnout was far from robust, but that aligns with trends toward voter apathy in any race not held in November.
Hmmm, I wonder if the Commercial Appeal will mention that its poll of 400 people in a pool of 440,000 voters, which showed Wharton winning with 53% of the vote, was very very inaccurate, way outside acceptable margin of error.
Where are the statisticians who were condescending to me on these forums when I said that poll was going to be way way wrong?
Commercial Appeal, do you think you can get Price Waterhouse to give your money back?
Bighouse:
We published the fact that the margin of error on those polls was plus-minus 5 percent. True, if you added another 200 people it would have knocked the MOE down a point or two, but I'm not getting your larger point. Those polls indicated Wharton held commanding advantages in support throughout the city. That more than held up. In fact, the final one Channel 3 commissioned nailed Lowery and Chumney's support levels. The Mason & Dixon Research people -- who have a great reputation nationally for their work -- would point out that it had 7 percent undecided and some portion of that must have gone to Wharton, thereby putting his final total within the margin of error.