An important change in City elections kicks in this year and very few people seem to know about it.

Because of changes in the City Charter, that override the State Election law in local elections, the signature requirements to get on the ballot have been lowered drastically.

I have also been posting elsewhere while the old Room Eight has been in a coma. I expect to continue doing so during this temporary resurrection, as the new Room Eight is expected to have its spreadsheet attachment function restored. More recently, I've been posting a series on the extent to which New York City has recovered from the 1970s. The latest installment was posted this morning. You can read it and download the spreadsheet to see the charts here.

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http://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/

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Now that Room 8 seems to be functioning, I'm joining Gatemouth in coming back.

Some of you may remember that in 2007, I postulated a theory of the two electorates - a small group of well informed voters and a massive group that could care less about politics. And I suggested that cable TV & the web were largely responsible for this

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/jerry_skurnik/the_theory_of_the_two_electorates.html

This week's Economist has a story that, whicle focusing on cable news, makes many of the same points.

Here it is -