The Black, Latino and Puerto Rican Alliance for Justice is calling on Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer to undertake a review of the recently held Municipal Elections, given the shockingly low level of voter participation by minorities.
In a letter delivered to Dyer Thursday, the Alliance warns that “Democracy is collapsing in Orlando” and urges the mayor to “promptly address a range of issues,” including the low participation in the recent elections of Black, Latino and Puerto Rican voters.
Research undertaken by the Alliance following the April 3, poll revealed that in minority majority Orlando, over 65% of the voters were non-Hispanic whites; just 4% of all voters under the age of 35 years participated in the elections; and voters over the age of 80 years outnumbered voters under 35.
A day after the mayoral elections, West Orlando News Online was first to point out that a mere 8.5 percent of the 131,000 voters in Orlando supported Dyer; less than 2 in 10 had voted and the mayor had garnered 12,000 votes in a city of 238,000 residents.
While on election night Dyer told the media, ‘It’s a great victory tonight and it validates everything we have been doing,’ the Alliance point out in their letter that the facts are, with such low voter participation, a lot of people just do not care.
“You (Dyer) have said, ‘Citizen involvement is essential to effective local government,’ wrote the Alliance. “So we know that you cannot be content when huge chunks of the community do not participate.”
The Alliance urges Dyer to initiate a program immediately to address several issues including the:
- benefit or negative impact of “non-partisan” elections
- impact of constantly changing dates for municipal elections
- absence of young voters from the elections
- very low level of minority participation in the elections and the impact of vote by mail programs, as well as the potential for distorted results and potential for fraud
- effect of money in the process and corporate contributions, out of state money, political action committees and Party money in the City elections as well as the extraordinary costs of electioneering in Orlando.
“The facts of the recent elections do seem to show that Democracy is collapsing in Orlando,” the letter concludes. “Not only do people not participate in their government, their absence demonstrates that our leaders really have no mandate. And that should be a huge concern for our leaders and for our civilians.”
