Taxpayers' Tuesday tab: $29.22 per vote

Unofficially speaking, 5,988 Durham voters exercised their franchise in yesterday's municipal election.

Unofficially then, the election cost Durham taxpayers $29.23 per vote.

"Unofficially," since the results won't be official until the Board of Elections completes its canvass next Tuesday. But, getting back to the point, according to elections Director Mike Ashe, it costs about $175,000 to hold a city election.

And it's as official as you can get that Tuesday's 4.2 percent voter turnout set a new low, in recent recorded memory, for public participation in the process of picking the people who decide whether your potholes get paved and how your refuse gets recycled and how much tax you have to pay for things like elections.

Early this year, the elections board modestly suggested that the city change its election process to get rid of primaries and just use a winner-take all single election for mayor and City Council seats; or at least, spare the public the cost of a second election when a top vote-getter comes in with a majority the first time out.

The council opted to keep the system as it was, and the elections board isn't going to be making any more suggestions, Ashe said today.

"We went into it with the best intentions," Ashe said. "We thought this was nonpartisan, nonpolitical. ... get the same good government and save money."

But after making the suggestion, its members found themselves in the awkward position of being part of a political debate.

"We have to be perceived as nonpartisan, nonpolitical," Ashe said.

So the board will stay out of any talk of change. But that's not to say the idea won't come back from another direction. Some folks were already talking about it this morning at City Hall.

After all, the taxpayers will be running up another $175,000 bill Nov. 3.