Electoral Big Spin : Low-Tech Method Used to Rank Mayoral Candidates for Ballot

It would be nice to think that political savvy, innovative ideas and a stunning intellect are the factors that will determine who becomes the next mayor of this city. But in truth, this vast contest may also be decided by a squirrel cage, 26 pieces of a manila folder and a bunch of old film canisters.

Those are the tools the city used Friday to determine the order in which candidates’ names will appear on the ballot. And with 31 people in the race, this otherwise non-event took on new meaning in a contest with an early front-runner and a crop of wanna-bes bunching up like racehorses out of the gate.

“Generally, you might get a 3% to 5% advantage if you are at the top of the ballot, but given the sheer massive number of candidates, it could be worth seven, eight or nine points this time,” political consultant Richard Lichtenstein said.

The goal is to give everybody a fair shot at winning the April 20 primary. So the city, as it has for every election for about 70 years, draws letters at random, creating a new alphabet used to rank names on the ballot. Election officials approach this task with all the formality of Price-Waterhouse on Oscar night.

The letters of the alphabet, each written on one of 26 pieces of a manila folder, are kept in a city safe with the petty cash and the keys to the government cars. Each letter is put in a film canister with a red cap. The canisters go into a squirrel cage, which is kept in a locked file cabinet on the 23rd floor with the paper and pencils. On Thursday night, someone ceremoniously dusts the squirrel cage off.

Now it is Friday morning, precisely 9 a.m. Inside the council’s stately chambers, election division chief Kristin Heffron gives the cage a spin and starts drawing. A hush falls over the members of the small audience. Among them are two of the lesser-known candidates: Melrose Larry Green, who showed up to pray that early front-runner Mike Woo gets a rotten spot, and Minister Pyung Soon Im, who came because he is under the misimpression that he is needed to pull the canisters out of the cage.

The first letter is K--fortuitous for Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Panorama City) whose name will appear at the top of the ballot. The second letter is H, a lucky break for Tom Houston and Nate Holden.

The election chief keeps drawing--U, A, M, E, T--still no W. The longer it takes to draw a W, the lower Woo’s name slips on the ballot. Green can hardly contain himself.

“This is great!” he cackles as the clerk draws the 17th letter and still no W. He offers to buy the elections chief dinner for a year if she draws W last.

Finally, with just two letters left in the cage, a W.

“Yes! Yes!” Green rejoices, holding up his homemade campaign sign and bowing toward chief Heffron. “Thank you very much. And God bless you.”

The 26th letter is P, which means Nick Patsaouras comes in dead last.

So, while we still do not know how many of the 31 declared candidates will pass the final qualification check, we do know that the 11 major ones will appear in this order: Katz, Houston, Holden, Ernani Bernardi, Richard Riordan, Julian Nava, Linda Griego, Stan Sanders, Joel Wachs, Woo and Patsaouras.

What does it all mean? That depends on whom you ask.

The city, going to great lengths to ensure fairness with such a large field, has adopted a new ballot format that will put all the mayoral candidates on two facing pages, meaning the voters will not have to turn a page, something studies show they have great difficulty accomplishing. So city officials would probably argue that ballot position means nothing at all.

Pundits, on the other hand, say the top is best, the bottom is not as good as the top but not as bad as the middle, which is deadly.

“It doesn’t help a second-tier candidate become a winner, but being at the top of the ballot can help a first-tier candidate win in a close race,” Lichtenstein said.

The candidates’ reactions varied according to their luck in the draw.

Patsaouras, who came in last, said last was great.

Katz, who came in first, said first was great.

An aide to Woo, who came in almost last, said it was all nonsense anyway. “This is not like somebody opening up the yellow pages and trying to find a plumber,” Garry South said. “This is going to be a very high-profile race.”

But for some of the lesser-known candidates who are hanging on in a race with hardly any money, experience or public support, the most important thing was being on the ballot at all.

“You mean we might be on Page 2? That’s good!” the Rev. Billy Watkins, assistant to Minister Im, said hopefully. “There are so many of them out there who are not even on Page Nothin’.”