Largest Vote in City History

Harvey Dent's massive victory in yesterday's election for District Attorney was aided by an unprecedented absentee vote, the largest in city history.

Even before final absentee numbers were completely counted, the Harvey Dent campaign was confident that it would benefit the most from the larger-than-expected turnout.

"Our nationwide, grassroots outreach campaign to every Gotham citizen was part of our strategy to increase the voter pool and solidify support for Dent," said media manager Allan Cypes.

Dent campaign staffers worked long hours to ensure that voter registration cards were mailed to every unregistered Gotham citizen eligible to vote. "If we left it up to the city of reach these people, there's no telling how long we'd be waiting," said Cypes. "The fact is, City Hall has a miserable track record in conducting voter outreach, but then again, why recruit new voters when you're trying to maintain the status quo?"

Election commission spokeswoman Martha Daniels-Hooverby attributed the size of the absentee vote to the bitterly-contested race. "I really think it's the passion of the supporters of each of the candidates, more than anything else, that attracted the sizable number of absentees that it did," Daniels-Hooverby said.

This election was also the first to make use of the city's new digital voting system, which allowed online voting for the first time in Gotham history. "Dent supporters are passionate and savvy people," said Allan Cypes. "We're not surprised by the massive number of votes delivered to Dent through this new tool, though I doubt the other campaigns are feeling this good about it."

The new electronic voting system, developed with input from the Gotham Association of the Elderly and the Gotham Special Needs Society, was accessible from anywhere in the world.

Local digital security firm Gotham Digital Rock Systems built the system "from the ground up with security our number-one priority," said company founder Quinn Rheingarden. Gotham Election Board officials were pleased with the experiment in online voting.

"When you look at these kinds of numbers and all the positive response we've been hearing, it's this new electronic system that's the real winner in this election," Daniels-Hooverby said.