Voter turnout may well increase with the $10,000 incentive that is to be given to one lucky winning citizen in this City of Brotherly Love. Reported by the Associated Press on Yahoo News, the prize will be given out during a lottery for all participating voters to the November 3 mayoral election.
The main and only goal of the program is to bring voters to the polling stations and possibly to renew interest in civic engagement.
Numbers have definitely deteriorated drastically from a 77% turnout in 1971 to just 29% in 2007, as reported in the Philadelphia Citizen. The mayoral primary in May of this year was particularly concerning with a participation of only 27%. Even then, and given the current voting climate, that was considered a relatively good turnout.
This apparently is not a case in isolation given that federal election turnout in 2014 was at an all-time low of just 36%. This is said to be the lowest participation since the second World War. Part of the program to woo citizens from apathy is the downloadable voting ballot on CrowdPac.com that will assist to make the voting process that much easier for the voters.
The 2015 Philadelphia Municipal Election Voting Lottery, which winning prize is courtesy of the Pamela and Ajay Raju Foundation, is not the first to apply this method of persuasion. Earlier this year, a similar enterprise in a small Los Angeles school district election saw a remarkable improvement in voters' participation from 46% to 80% when a lottery incentive of $25,000 was attached to the activity.
An earlier report by The Guardian explains that part of the reason to the downward trajectory of voting in Philadelphia comes from disillusionment among local communities. The high unemployment levels in Philadelphia compared to anywhere else in the US along with prevalent misinformation on the political processes ripened the citizens for mistrust over the election process.
