Philly’s historic election and a $20 million Supreme Court race failed to lure a big turnout

The Philadelphia electorate made history on Tuesday. Pennsylvania voters were choosing a new Supreme Court justice and making choices in counties that may well be critical to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. In New Jersey, all 140 legislative seats were on the ballot.

And for all that, on an April-like Election Day, evidently the overwhelming majority of those who were eligible chose to let the voting minority make those decisions for them.

In Philadelphia, where voters elected their first woman, Democrat Cherelle Parker, as their 100th mayor, turnout was, in a word, “low,” said Lauren Cristella, president and CEO of the good-government watchdog group Committee of Seventy

With 95% of precincts reporting, the City Commissioners reported a 28% turnout among registered voters, which would be in line with recent mayoral elections. On the Jersey side, about a quarter of those registered cast votes in Camden and Burlington Counties, and just over a third in Gloucester County.

Neither the historic implications in Philly’s mayoral race nor the more than $20 million spent on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race appeared to inspire voter enthusiasm. In the gym of North Philadelphia’s Camelot Academy, for example, poll workers often outnumbered voters.

Some Philadelphia voters, such as teacher Gabrielle James, 52, weren’t especially stoked by the mayoral nominees. She said she voted for Parker even though she doesn’t agree that school should be open year-round. She does think Parker is right about increasing police presence.

”I’m a lifelong Philadelphian and I feel kind of scared at different times,” she said.

Regarding the precedent of electing a Black female mayor, Zakiya Powell, 44, of North Philadelphia, said, ”We can’t be super excited about that. There’s so many other things happening in our neighborhood.”

“Just getting my daughter to walk down the street to vote is a safety issue,” said Powell, who is Black, in front of her polling place at Zion Baptist Church.

» READ MORE: Gov. Josh Shapiro is cool to Parker's proposal to deploy the National Guard in Kensington

At Penn Alexander School, Jeff Riedel, 45, a registered Democrat, voted for Republican mayoral candidate David Oh, even though he said he’d be fine with Parker. What Riedel called a “protest vote” was more about trying to restore some semblance of balance in a city where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by a ratio of 7-1.

About 70,000 of the city’s registered voters cast ballots by mail — most of them Democrats — and that may have contributed to the smaller crowds at the polling places and what the Committee of Seventy’s Cristella described as a generally calm day.

Jane Roh, a spokesperson for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, said that the office’s Election Day Task Force responded to 16 complaints, the vast majority of which were resolved on site without additional formal actions.

Said George Matysik, chair of the 38th Ward in East Falls, “I’ve been going around, and this has been the smoothest election from a logistics point of view.” Matysik said he saw Tuesday as a dress rehearsal that bodes well for the 2024 election, when a whole lot more people are likely to show up.

Not that the polls were devoid of issues.

On the Main Line, two polling places at Radnor High School were relocated Tuesday evening after a reported bomb threat. Delaware County officials asked a court to extend voting till 9 p.m. at the new locations; the request was granted.

In Philly, tensions flared Tuesday between the Democratic Party establishment and its progressive wing, the Working Families Party, whose candidates are running for two at-large City Council seats with the support of some Democrats. A WFP official accused Democrats of “bullying volunteers” instead of “trying to fix the party’s dismal turnout rate.”

Dustups were reported at some polling locations, including one that required law enforcement intervention.

U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D., Pa.), the Democratic City Committee chair, denied the allegation of bullying but allowed that “there’s probably heated discussions out there.”

» READ MORE: Party chair Bob Brady warns Democrats about supporting Working Families Party candidates

Those Council races appeared to draw more heat than the battle for the Supreme Court, on which the Democrats hold a 4-2 majority.

Outside groups and political parties spent more than $17 million to elect Republican Carolyn Carluccio or Democrat Dan McCaffery to the state’s highest court. Despite both candidates filling Pennsylvania’s airwaves and mailboxes, many voters didn’t have strong feelings about either candidate.

Several said they voted straight-ticket for their party, but couldn’t recall who they voted for in the Supreme Court race. That tracked with a recent Franklin and Marshall College poll that found that more than 7 in 10 registered voters didn’t know enough about McCaffery or Carluccio to form an opinion about them. However, voters said they had certainly seen the ads for the Supreme Court race.

Many voters around Phoenixville and Collegeville said they didn’t come out to the polls with the state Supreme Court in mind. In Phoenixville, it was a ballot referendum to eliminate a school district tax. In Collegeville, it was the school board race for Perkiomen Valley School District.

Those results in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania suburbs will be closely watched for their 2024 implications.

Along the Delaware River in Bristol Borough, voters were well aware that Bucks County held an outsized importance in national politics.

» READ MORE: Trends in Philly's neighboring Pa. suburbs could have implications for 2024

“Today is proof that there’s no small elections,” resident Debra Flaig said after voting at the Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary/Middle School. “Every political position is a step up the ladder to more power.”

With Democrats Bob Harvie and Diane Marseglia running against Republicans Gene DiGirolamo and Pamela Van Bunk for three county commissioner seats, voters were thinking of next year’s presidential election, and how those commissioners could be called upon to certify election results in a purple county.

”That’s why I voted Democratic. I hate Trump,” voter Brendan Bradley said at the school of the former president, Donald Trump. “Keeping these commissioners in office is incredibly important.” Flaig voted the opposite way. ”I feel like the country is being ruined by liberals,” she said.

Pennsylvania voters also were asked to decide on whether to retain a battery of state and county judges, something that Philadelphian Marianne Krystofolski, 68, found particularly frustrating.

“It was ridiculous not knowing anything about these people and being asked to vote whether they should have additional terms,” said the Germantown resident. “I didn’t vote for any of them, I don’t know these people, I don’t know who they are.”

State Rep. Jordan Harris (D., Phila.), appearing at a South Philly voting place late in the day, said it was incumbent upon politicians to get voters engaged in government.

”That’s on us as elected officials to make sure that folks understand the connection between what’s happening in their everyday lives and what’s happening in their halls of government,” he said.

Staff writers Ryan Briggs, Jesse Bunch, Ximena Conde, Beatrice Forman, Kristen A. Graham, Lynette Hazelton, Gillian McGoldrick, Robert Moran, Michelle Myers, Jason Nark, Anna Orso, Ariana Perez-Castells, Rodrigo Torrejon, Amy S. Rosenberg and Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.