A Quick Math Lesson

As I've mentioned previously, the Duval County School Board has, historically, been somewhat diverse. Many of its members have never held elective office prior to running for their seat. A few, like Tommy Hazouri, are politically well-connected, but the nonpartisan nature of the campaign combined with the relatively low profile of the Board seems to keep the influence of the movers and shakers in town to a minimum.

All of that would change if School Board members were elected "at large," by all registered voters in Duval County.

In City Council District 2, there were just under 37,000 registered voters in the spring of 2007. Each City Council district is supposed to have roughly the same number of registered voters, and there are two City Council districts in each School Board district, so School Board members are elected by about 74,000 voters. (This number is slowly increasing as the county's population increases.)

To win an election, you need just over half of the votes actually cast in the election. In a "good" year, voter turnout might be 45%, so the winner in the election would need the votes of about 23% of the registered voters, or for a School Board race, about 17,000 votes. That might sound like a lot, and it is, but a determined candidate can reach out to that many voters without a lot of resources, mostly time. Basically, you could win the election by knocking on doors, shaking hands, and talking to anyone who would listen.

An election for an At Large seat is an entirely different affair. Consider: There are over half a million voters in Jacksonville, so if only 25% of them vote, more than 125,000 votes will be cast, and the winner would receive over 60,000 votes, or nearly four times the number of votes needed to win a School Board election under the current system. Just as importantly, the voters are spread out over the entire county, from Baldwin in the west to Jacksonville Beach in the east. It is simply not practical for a candidate to win an election on that scale without significant resources of some kind, either money (for direct mail or television advertising) or a veritable army of volunteers (for a "grass roots" campaign).

Do you know anyone with the resources to win an election for School Board under the current district system? Probably. Could you win? Maybe, with a little preparation and a lot of hard work.

Excluding public figures like current and past elected officials, do you know anyone with the resources to win an At Large election? I don't.

We've seen what happens when an institution is taken over by the political elite and their wealthy benefactors - Would you trust Congress with our children's education?