West Philadelphians casts their votes in a recreation center during the special primary election on May 19, 2015. REUTERS/Mark Makela 
 
 Philadelphia residents: If you trouble yourselves to vote Nov. 3, you might win $10,000. Seriously. That was the scheme laid out Thursday, showcased in part by two ex-rivals - former Mayor John F. Street and three-time Republican mayoral candidate Sam Katz, whom Democrat Street twice defeated. They teamed up to promote voting in a city that has seen abysmal turnouts in recent years. "Desperate times require desperate measures, and this is certainly the case," Katz said at a LOVE Park event announcing what promoters billed as a lottery. 
 
 The two men joined Larry Platt, former editor of Philadelphia Magazine and the Philadelphia Daily News, as he announced the plan to give $10,000 to one lucky voter on Election Day. 
 
 Platt pointed to a large chart showing dwindling turnout over the last few decades. Barely one in four voters took part in the May 19 mayoral primary. 
 
 "We are in a crisis of civic participation," Platt said. "And we're in favor of anything that gets the conversation started, to try and jump-start democracy in the place where it was born." 
 
 The planned giveaway is also sure to stir publicity for the entity running it - Platt's online publication, Philadelphia Citizen. 
 
 The $10,000 is coming from a foundation begun by Ajay Raju and his wife, Pamela. Raju is chairman and chief executive of the Dilworth Paxson law firm and, with Platt, is a founder of Philadelphia Citizen. 
 
 Platt said the contest will work this way: Polling locations for all 1,686 voting divisions will be fed into a computer program that chooses one at random. Then on Election Day, organizers will drive to that polling place and wait for the first person who comes out after having voted. 
 
 That voter, if all goes according to plan, will be handed a $10,000 check. 
 
 "My first gut instinct was, 'Do we really need to pay to get voter participation?' It seemed a bit crass," Raju said following the announcement. "But if it can spark a conversation. ..." 
 
 Raju said he doesn't have the best voting record himself. 
 
 "Part of it is penance," he said of donating the money. "I always have an excuse for not voting." 
 
 Promoters said the contest is modeled on one this year in a Los Angeles school-board election by the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a national group that encourages Latino voter participation. A Los Angeles voter won $25,000; the experiment drew praise and criticism. 
 
 Project president Antonio Gonzalez said the runoff race for school board drew only 10 percent turnout - a little better than previous elections. 
 
 Is it legal to award cash for voting in Philadelphia? Yes, if it's not partisan, said local lawyer Kevin Greenberg, who specializes in election law and was part of Thursday's announcement. Another election-law specialist, lawyer Adam Bonin, agreed. Both said it's a bribe if the voter is asked to vote for a particular candidate or issue. 
 
 David Thornburgh, chief executive of the watchdog group Committee of Seventy, was at the LOVE Park event, too - and later said he was open-minded. "I do agree that we have to be trying things," he said. "I'm not offended by the idea." 
 
 His predecessor was. 
 
 "It's a bad idea," Zack Stalberg said in an interview from New Mexico, to which he retired last year. "The objective should be to inform voters, not give voters a payday." 
 
 Street said voter apathy is not just a problem for Philadelphia. 
 
 "It seems like this is a very, very serious national trend," said the former mayor, an inveterate bicyclist who wore his helmet throughout the event. "Long-term, people have to see a direct relationship between the casting of their vote and the quality of service that they get and the quality of life." 
 
 cvargas@phillynews.com 
 
 215-854-5520@InqCVargas ||||| The 1971 Philadelphia mayor’s race may have been the last great moment in this city’s electoral history. That was the race that brought to City Hall the most-loved-most-hated Philly politician of the last century, Frank Rizzo. It found African Americans throwing their support to a Republican, Thacher Longstreth. And it saw the most tremendous voter turnout of the last 56 years. That November day, 77 percent of eligible Philadelphians made a choice. They went to the polls; they punched a ticket; they voted. For or against Rizzo, they took a stand in the most basic, most powerful way this country’s founders intended when they wrangled a constitution at 5th and Chestnut 200 years earlier. 
 
 Frank Rizzo was not, by any means, mayor for every Philadelphian. But you know what? Neither is Michael Nutter, who moved into City Hall in 2007 after just 29 percent of eligible voters made a choice. Or even John Street, whose races against Sam Katz were the most exciting in recent memory—and brought a whopping 45 and 50 percent of voters respectively to the polls. This year, just 27 percent voted in the May 2015 primary to decide who would likely lead Philly for the next eight years—and that was considered a good turnout. (Oh, we of such low expectations.) 
 
 One voter. Randomly selected. Taking home $10,000, courtesy of the Pamela and Ajay Raju Foundation. 
 
 It’s not just Philly, of course. This is a national epidemic: Turnout in the last federal election in 2014 was just 36 percent—the lowest since World War II (when thousands of voters were, you know, super busy). But it is especially galling here, where this country started and where every single one of us knows a myriad of problems that need solving—and that are not being solved by the same old decision-makers on Broad Street. Philadelphia suffers from chronic civic participation malaise. We could, as usual, stand back and wring our hands. Instead, we at The Citizen have decided it’s time for action. 
 
 That’s why we launched the 2015 Philadelphia Municipal Election Voting Lottery, to give $10,000 to one Philadelphia voter who casts a ballot on November 3. Let me repeat that: One voter. Randomly selected. Taking home $10,000, courtesy of the Pamela and Ajay Raju Foundation. Before you ask: Yes, this is legal. And no: We are not endorsing anyone, or making any money off of this ourselves. We’re doing this for one reason alone: To bring more people to the polls, in any way that gets them there. (See here for rules and regulations.) 
 
 We’ll even make it easier for you make a decision: Now that you know what’s at stake, make sure you take 10 minutes and familiarize yourself with all the candidates in the race. You can learn about them all here, and even make your own ballot. 
 
 A similar program, in a small Los Angeles school district election in May , saw remarkable results: Voter turnout increased from 46 percent to 80 percent among those who knew about the possibility of winning $25,000 through Votería. Can you imagine if twice as many people here came out to the polls in November as showed up in May? That would still be only 54 percent of registered voters. But even that would make an impact. And who knows? Maybe it would be just the spark they need to come back again and again. 
 
 Sure, it reeks a little. It is sorta icky. As The Los Angeles Times said about Votería, “This gimmick demeans the value of voting. And it’s the most superficial pseudo-solution to a very real problem in Los Angeles, which is the pervasive civic malaise that prevents so many eligible voters from feeling truly engaged.” 
 
 Philadelphia suffers from chronic civic participation malaise. We could, as usual, stand back and wring our hands. Instead, we at The Citizen have decided it’s time for action. 
 
 
 
 But you know what? Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is not the only idea out there. We’ve written about Next Stop Democracy, which has hired artists to set up signs around town pointing people to their voting booths. Young Involved Philadelphians, along with our lottery co-sponsor IAM, are running a Voter Education Week to get out the vote. Nationally, there is talk of mandatory voting, automatic registration, same day registration, open primaries, online registration (which Gov. Wolf launched in PA in August). Hopefully, some of those ideas will gain enough traction in the years ahead to reverse the trend of declining voter turnouts. 
 
 In the meantime, we can only say this: Go vote. Because it’s the right thing to do as a citizen. And because you might just come out $10,000 richer. 
 
 Header photo: “Voting United States” by Tom Arthur from Orange, CA. Uploaded by Petronas. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. ||||| In what it calls an act of desperation, The Philadelphia Citizen says it will pay one Nov. 3 voter $10,000 awarded by lottery. Is the desperation to prod more Philadelphians to the polls -- or to notice The Philadelphia Citizen? 
 
 In the good old days of politics, which were the bad old days of politics, the ward leader might pay his/her reliable citizens – the ones who cast predictable votes – some cash for showing up. Buying a drink or a sandwich was the favored inducement in other wards. Generally speaking, buying votes is considered to be a bad thing – when the money goes directly from the politician to the voter. Somehow, it is considered OK when it is washed through a political action committee or a TV station, which is how most modern voters make up their minds. The Philadelphia Citizen, which sounds like a newspaper but is more of an online presence, says it will pay $10,000 to a single Philadelphia voter, to be chosen by chance. The Philadelphia Citizen is co-founded by Larry Platt, former editor of the Daily News, former editor of Philadelphia Magazine, and something of a promotional genius (he’s got Eagles linebacker Connor Barwin writing for him). 
 
 The Citizen says the lottery is legal, it is not endorsing anyone, and the money is provided by the Pamela and Ajay Raju Foundation. (Ajay is the CEO of the mammoth Dilworth Paxson law firm, a co-founder of the Citizen and a big part of the money behind it). 
 
 The story announcing the prize kind of admits the pay-for-voting is “icky,” and it is, but when you consider that only 27 percent of registered voters turned out for the mayoral primary in May, things are dire. 
 
 The Philadelphia Citizen said it did drive turnout in a recent Los Angeles school district election, but that was $25,000 and who knows what other factors might have been in play. 
 
 “It’s kind of a cockamamie scheme,” Platt told me. “I want to give away money to see if we can get people to vote.” 
 
 The plan is to show up at a random polling place at a random time, stop someone who had just voted and (almost) hand him or her a check. Almost? 
 
 Platt explains they have to check to make certain that person is not related to a candidate or anyone on the Citizen staff. 
 
 Why? They voted, didn’t they? 
 
 Anyway, if that “winner” turns out to be ineligible, the Citizen will go through the list of people who voted to find a random winner. 
 
 Like me? Am I eligible? 
 
 Probably yes, but I will vote because I always vote, not because of the cash inducement (but I’ll keep it if I win it). 
 
 I don’t think the 10 Large will make much difference because Philly voters seem to be lethargic, and few will hear about this offer. I’m doing my part to get the word out. 
 
 It couldn’t hurt.
– A nonprofit group is throwing in $10,000 to sweeten the deal for potential voters in Philadelphia for whom the joy of taking part in democracy might not be enough. Voter turnout in the city has been declining for a long time and sank to just 27% in a mayoral primary this May, according to the Philadelphia Citizen, which is offering the prize in its "2015 Philadelphia Municipal Election Voting Lottery." The group says it will randomly select one of Philadelphia's 1,686 voting divisions when the city votes in local elections on Nov. 3, and will hand a $10,000 check to the first voter who emerges at a selected time, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The Citizen says the funds will come from the Pamela and Ajay Raju Foundation civic group—and the giveaway is completely legal. On its website, the Citizen, which was co-founded by former Philadelphia Daily News editor Larry Platt, admits that the plan is "sorta icky"—and that a similar giveaway in a Los Angeles school district was condemned as a "superficial pseudo-solution" to civic malaise—but says "desperate times call for desperate measures," and the lottery isn't the only scheme underway to try to boost voter turnout. "It's kind of a cockamamie scheme," Platt tells the Daily News. "I want to give away money to see if we can get people to vote." (Low turnout isn't just a Philadelphia problem: The "abysmally low" turnout nationwide last year was the worst since World War II.)