9 June 2020: The 2020 Voter Challenge has started!
The Voter Challenge for 2020 has officially started.
The prizes are $1000, $500 and $250 to the cities in our Next Door group that have the highest voter turnout in the November 2020 election, based on results as reported by Oakland County Elections.
For 2018, there were actually 2 challenges, between Huntington Woods and Pleasant Ridge, and between Berkley, Ferndale, Oak Park, Royal Oak and Southfield. The challenges were designed based on the historical voter turnouts and what seemed to be fair competitions. I publicized the challenges using Next Door Huntington Woods (which includes at least some portion of these 7 cities) and also wrote to the Mayors and City Council of each city. I erroneously omitted Lathrup Village from the challenge, but it will be included in the 2020 Voter Challenge. For details, see https://natpernick.blogspot.com/2018/12/12-december-2018-2018-voter-challenge.html
After the election, I presented checks to the recreation departments of these cities at their City Commission / City Council meetings: Huntington Woods ($1,000), Berkley ($1,000) and Ferndale ($500).
For 2020, since the historical voter turnouts were closer together (see below), there will be only one competition, but with 3 prizes. In addition, any city that has at least 75% turnout will get $250 and any city with 80% turnout will get $500, but cities can only get one award. Cities will choose, in advance, the charity to receive the prize if they win, as an incentive to their residents to vote. It could be their recreation department or something else.
Here are the results from the 2016 general election:
November 2016 General Election
Votes Reg voters Turnout
Berkley 9,538 12,520 76.18%
Ferndale 11,486 15,578 73.73%
Huntington Woods 4,435 5,334 83.15%
Lathrup Village 2,853 3,692 77.28%
Oak Park 15,702 23,714 66.21%
Pleasant Ridge 1,855 2,331 79.58%
Royal Oak 35,344 48,898 72.28%
Southfield 43,150 60,775 71.00%
Source: Oakland County Website, retrieved 9 June 2020 https://www.oakgov.com/clerkrod/elections/Documents/11082016_voter_turnout.pdf