This is always a fun math project, seeing how much candidates and ballot committees paid for a vote. This is from the past municipal election
• Greg Jamison: $70,973 Votes: 13,939 Cost per vote: $5.08
• Mike Huether: $217,433 Votes: 17,612 Cost per vote: $12.35
At-large City Council A
• Rex Rolfing: $15,383 Votes: 15,165 Cost per vote: $1.01
• Emmett Reistroffer: recent report not filed
• Manny Steele: $3,907 Votes: 6,893 Cost per vote: $.57
At-large City Council B
• Christine Erickson: $25,380 Votes: 16,337 Cost per vote: $1.55
• Denny Pierson: $4,315 Votes: 8,793 Cost per vote: $.49
Central District City Council
• Rebecca Dunn: $5,714 Votes: 1,944 Cost per vote: $2.93
• Michelle Erpenbach: $16,127 Votes: 2,967 Cost per vote: $5.43
Southeast District City Council
• Rick Kiley: $8,535 Votes: 5,098 Cost per vote: $1.67
• Bonita Schwan: $1,221 Votes: 2,743 Cost per vote: $.45
Initiated Measure 2 on the Spellerberg pool
• Citizens for Saving Spellerberg: $760 Votes: 9,231 Cost per vote: $.08
• Community Swim 365: $125,494 Votes: 22,193 Cost per vote: $5.65
Referred Law 3 on the Shape Places zoning ordinance
• Forward Zoning: $8,600 Votes: 18,712 Cost per vote: $.46
• Save Your Voice: $310 Votes: 9,723 Cost per vote: $.03
Referred Law 4 on rezoning for a Walmart store
• Building a Better Sioux Falls: $468,701 Votes: 19,892 Cost per vote: $23.56
• Save Your Neighborhood: $3,233 Votes: 11,093 Cost per vote: $.29
If you go by cost per vote, the big winner of the night would be snowgates, which spent $0 per vote and won by over 75%. Walmart is really the loser, they had to spend $23.56 per vote. They should have just handed out gift cards. They actually spent 81x more then the competition. The fact remains, money wins elections, and if you look at these results you will see that the winners spent twice as much as the losers did per vote.