PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — With a week left to register to vote, and three weeks until the election, Philadelphia officials made a plea Monday for residents to do both.
In the four-year election cycle, the general election after a presidential year - the one coming next month - is one of the lowest for turn-out.
No wonder, as the city controller is running unopposed, the District Attorney’s race is a foregone conclusion and then there are lists of judicial candidates that few voters could be expected to thoroughly research.
And yet, ward leader Alan Butkovitz warned skipping this one is courting danger.
"Since January 6, we don’t have off-year elections," Butkovitz said.
"We are fighting people who are determined to make sure we have an authoritarian system of government, not a democracy, not a voting system."
There are four contested, statewide elections on the top of the ballot: Supreme Court, Superior Court and two Commonwealth Court seats.
Butkovitz and others noted how important courts were in defending the 2020 election and urged voters not to write off this one.
"I don’t think we have to search our memory very far to recognize how important it is to have an independent court system. What we went through in the 2020 presidential election was not an aberration."
Nick O’Rourke of the Working Families Party emphasized that voters in other parts of the state will be turning out.
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"For those of us who live in places like Philly, which has been the anchor, the actual linchpin to turn this around, we need to make sure that we turn out to vote," O'Rourke said.
City commissioner Omar Sabir stressed how much easier it has become to register using an online option, and to vote with a mail-in ballot.
"You can vote in the comfort of your own home right now. You can come to City Hall Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. You don’t have to wait until November 2," Sabir said.
Registration closes October 18 at midnight. The election will be held on November 2.
