Frontline Voters

The Frontline Voters of The People Speak

The citizens enrolled in this program will be “Frontline Voters”, providing the voter base and political leverage for the strategies of The People Speak.

Frontline Voters agree to be in strategic partnership with The People Speak, accepting information directly from The People Speak and responding as they’re inspired to do so when presented with calls-to-action by The People Speak. The goal is to enroll 5%-10% of the voters in support of this civic initiative (5%-10% of the projected voter turnout for a specific election).

Simply put, no campaign can risk alienating even 5%-10% of likely voters, especially in highly contested races.

Background – San Jose, California

There are one million residents in San Jose, California, making it the tenth largest city in the nation and the self-styled “Capitol of Silicon Valley.”

The last time the San Jose mayor’s office was on the ballot with no incumbent mayor in the race was 2006 (Mayor Ron Gonzales was termed out). The primary election in June 2006 was a hotly contested mayoral race in which 126,428 votes were cast citywide. Chuck Reed placed first, Cindy Chavez placed second, and David Pandori placed third (in a field of ten candidates). Only Chuck Reed and Cindy Chavez advanced to the November 2006 run-off election, and Chuck Reed was subsequently elected mayor of San Jose that year.

It’s important to note that only 5.6% of the June 2006 voter turnout – 7,106 votes – separated Chuck Reed’s first place position from Cindy Chavez’s second place position. Only 5.3% of the voter turnout – 6,714 votes – separated Cindy Chavez’s second place position from David Pandori’s third place position. David Cortese, in fourth place, would have vaulted into second place and into the November run-off election with another 6.8% of the voter turnout – 8,604 votes.

A similar pattern is evident when examining closely contested elections over the past two decades in San Jose, California. The guiding principle here is that a 5%-10% margin of voters can exercise strategic leverage because a hotly contested race makes every margin of voters essential to victory.

This is critical to understand and bears repeating. You don’t need 25%-30%, or 40%-50% of the voters; rather, 5%-10% of the voters is sufficient to exercise powerful voter leverage to uphold higher standards of campaigning.

Read about The People Speak strategy of Rewards and Consequences.