As of Saturday, 12,144 votes had been received by the Supervisor of Elections. The over 65 voters are still the largest percentage of the voters – 4,743, 39.1 percent of votes cast. That age group has voter turnout of 59 percent. The votes are 4-to1 to the under 35 year old – 1,026 votes, 8.4 percent of votes cast and turnout percentage of 9.8 percent.
The 50-64 age bracket has cast 4,286 votes – 35.3 percent of the total cast, voter turnout percentage of 42.2 percent. This is the largest age bracket of registered voters.
The 35-49 age bracket has cast 2,089 votes – 17.2 percent of the total cast, voter turnout percentage of 36.3 percent.
The under 65 age brackets are the ones who are primarily voting now so these ratios will change some. If we assume that the majority of the over 65 vote is against change and the majority of the under 35 is for the charter, then the passage of the charter will depend on a huge Yes votes from the 35-49 and 50-64 age groups.
It’s a difficult election to predict. No Boss Mayor has no grassroots organization so its votes have probably already been cast. The pressure will be on We Believe in a Better Pensacola to get the last few stragglers to drop their ballots off at the Supervisor of Elections office.
The one positive note for the Pro-charter camp is the voter turnout by city district:
34%- Wu
29%- Hall
40%- DeWeese
40% – Johnson
26% – Jerraulds
26% – Cannada-Wynn
22% – Townsend
The African-American vote will support the status quo, but those districts aren’t voting. Wu and Hall have older districts and they aren’t voting in big numbers either.