Low-turnout elections can bring surprises

A month after Barack Obama's historic 2008 presidential victory, New Orleans voters in a district that was predominantly black and Democratic surprised political pundits by electing a congressman who was neither black nor a Democrat.

The incumbent Democrat, William Jefferson, was facing money-laundering and bribery charges after FBI agents found $90,000 in cash wrapped in foil inside his freezer. New Orleans voters had a reputation for tolerance in such matters, however, and nobody gave much chance to the Republican challenger.

Then Hurricane Gustav reconfigured Louisiana's election calendar, pushing the vote to early December - when only 17.9 percent of registered voters went to the polls. They, too, made history: Republican Anh Cao won by 1,814 votes to become the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress. (He lost his reelection bid last fall.)

That history is noteworthy because Philadelphia may be facing a low-turnout election of its own on Tuesday, and poll-watchers will tell you: Low turnouts can lead to unusual results.

Mayor Nutter has an opponent in former state senator and federal inmate Milton Street, but the election is not considered close and neither side has invested in television advertising. Several competitive races for City Council seats may stir up voters in some neighborhoods, but it's unclear whether the public is paying much attention.

When there's a competitive race at the top of the ticket, Democrats can be lured to the polls in Philadelphia. Better than 55 percent turned out to support Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 primary; close to 39 percent did the year before, when Nutter won a five-way primary for mayor.

But in odd-numbered years without such galvanizing contests, Philadelphia's primary turnout can drop to 20 percent or lower. Just 12.5 percent of registered Democrats voted in the district attorney's race two years ago, and Seth Williams won with 43,674 votes - barely one in 20 Democratic voters.

When so few people go to the polls, unexpected things can happen.

Ask Russell Nigro.

In 2005, Nigro was a state Supreme Court justice facing a routine retention vote to determine whether he would get another 10 years on the bench.

But in the middle of a July night, state legislators voted themselves a pay raise. The state Supreme Court, citing past decisions, refused to intervene. Nigro became a convenient target of voter wrath.

On Election Day, only 18.3 percent of the state's voters showed up, and apparently many who did were angry. They unseated Nigro by nearly 30,000 votes, making him the only Pennsylvania appellate judge ever rejected in a yes-or-no retention vote.

"When you have a low-turnout election, you're not getting anything like a true sample of what the electorate wants," said Isaac Wood, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "The people who go to the polls tend to be the ones with the strongest opinions, most likely at one extreme or the other . . . the diehards in each party."

The conventional wisdom is that low turnout helps candidates backed by party machinery - the ward leaders and committee people who can bring out substantial numbers of people to vote for party-endorsed candidates.

But Philadelphia's Democratic Party has never been a monolithic force.

"Yes, there's an organization, and, yes, it's capable of getting energized about certain races," said Zack Stalberg, executive director of the watchdog group Committee of Seventy. "But it's certainly not a machine in the old sense of the word, where the leaders could designate who the candidates were and others would drop out or not have a fighting chance."

Stalberg described pockets of political energy in various parts of the city - Asian Americans engaged in the Council at-large campaigns of Democrat Andy Toy and Republican David Oh; a series of heated Council races to replace retiring incumbents; a battle for the city's first Hispanic councilwoman, Maria Quiñones Sánchez, trying to hold her seat with most of the district's Democratic ward leaders lined up behind her opponent, Danny Savage; and the Council at-large and commissioner races in the city's Republican Party.

Turnout could tilt those races one way or the other, and no pols would be very surprised. If there is a shocker on Tuesday, it could involve one of the candidates seeking reelection after lining up six-figure payments from the city's deferred-retirement program, the hated DROP.

They are odds-on favorites: Frank Rizzo Jr., the Republican councilman, has the best-known name in city politics; Marian B. Tasco is a front-runner to become the next Council president; Marge Tartaglione has been a fixture as city commissioner for 36 years.

But in a low-turnout election, most anything is possible. Just ask Nigro. Or Cao.