Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg released campaign spending data this week. Gotham Gazette that the records show that he spent $77.9 million of his own money on his re-election effort. In 2001 he spent $74 million.
So, for the 2005 election:
Bloomberg
Votes: 753,089
Spent: $77,900,000
Cost per vote: $103.44
(Campaign debt: $0)
Ferrer
Votes: 503,219
Spent: $9,500,000
Cost per vote: $18.87
(Campaign debt: $488,000)
Isn’t plutocracy easy?
I really like this way of auditing the vote — good work here!
I would love to see this done (cost per vote) in every election — I am very interested in knowing how much $$ is spent on one voter, say me, over ALL of the elections I vote in (local, state, national, and presidential combined) — given $108 in a mayoral election, I would venture to guess it would come to a pretty hefty sum.
Then, if you added those up, year after year, after year….I dare say, that there are some things we could take care of MUCH more effeciently and equitably than our current non-democratic government does!!
Thanks for making me think about this this morning! 😉