Nearby Trenton (pop. 1,245,322) has plans to dump its
excess garbage in Cumberland City. Jasper Woodbury goes to Trenton to
investigate the story for the Cumberland City Chronicle. He arrives at
Trenton's landfill at the same time as the Lincoln High School
Environmental Club. Tracy Clayton, a student in the club, tells a friend
that her mother, Lenore Clayton, has plans for handling Trenton's solid
waste problems as part of her platform in the mayor's race.
After the field trip, Tracy discovers her mother lost the school's mock election to Mayor Miller ‹ 454 votes to 482 votes. Her mother might have won if the club members had not missed the voting. Their trip ran behind schedule all day because they had to travel in 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. rush hour traffic for an hour. They missed the 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. rush hour, so their return took just 25 minutes, but they still did not arrive in time to vote. A classmate tells Tracy and her brother Marcus that their mom "doesn't stand a chance" in the real election in two days, since the school has predicted over 80 percent of Trenton's winning mayors since the 1960s.
On their way to campaign headquarters, Tracy and Marcus take five minutes
to stop at Polly's for gas. The pump shows that gas costs $1.259 per
gallon, so for $5.00 they put in 3.969 gallons. Tracy remarks that they go
to Polly's a lot, since her car only averages ten miles per gallon.
At campaign headquarters, a graph of poll results
reveals that Ms. Clayton gained nine percentage points the previous week,
putting her two percentage points behind Mayor Miller. According to a
graph of the 4th District, support for Ms. Clayton runs high in precincts
3, 11 and 38, but voter turnout in those areas is historically low. Ms.
Clayton's campaign manager, Victor, says they can win the 4th District if
they increase voter turnout in those precincts by five percentage
points.
James, Ms. Clayton's husband, declares that their "Get Out The Vote"
effort is key to winning. A meeting for the volunteer drivers is scheduled
for the next day at three o'clock. He looks over a set of driver
instructions. Drivers need to allow 15 minutes to complete the van rental
paperwork. Six-passenger vans carry six voters plus the driver, while 11
passenger vans carry 11 voters in addition to the driver. Polls open at 7
a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
Marcus tells his mom she lost the election at school
by almost 30 votes, and that ROCK 100's call-in poll shows her trailing by
eight percentage points. Ms. Clayton disagrees, saying her polls indicate
it is only two and falling. Marcus glances at a list of approximate travel
times: Rush Hour ‹ 5 minutes per mile on surface streets, 1.5 minutes
per mile on freeways; Other times ‹ 2 minutes per mile on surface
streets, 1.2 minutes per mile on freeways.
Mr. Clayton recalls the first time he served as a volunteer driver. Mrs.
Mayfield, an 82-year-old voter, taught him to never leave his passengers
at the polls. She always said, "One vote, James, one vote. It can be the
difference between winning and losing." Mr. Clayton points out that if
John F. Kennedy had one less vote in every Illinois precinct he would not
have won the presidential election, and Tracy adds that one vote gave
women the right to vote.
At a neighborhood meeting that afternoon, Ms. Clayton
assures residents and visiting reporter Jasper Woodbury that her
experience as a partner in an accounting firm will help her control the
city's budget. In addition, she explains that Trenton could reduce its
waste at least 25 percent just by recycling and reusing.
Meanwhile, at campaign headquarters, Victor tells Tracy and Marcus that drivers will be available from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. He says that volunteers have been taking requests for rides from voters at the community centers and senior citizens' homes.
Tracy looks at the voter ride requests for Precinct 38:
| Shifts | Earliest Pickup |
Return By |
|---|---|---|
|
First Shift Second Shift Third Shift |
6:00 a.m. 9:00 a.m. 3:00 p.m. |
9:00 a.m. 3:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m. |
| Location | First Shift |
Second Shift |
Third Shift |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Greentree Center Rockhill Comm. Center Winterset Manor |
6 5 0 |
11 10 35 |
5 6 0 |
Marcus reads the brochure from the van rental
company. The company is open from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., and gives a 20
percent discount for vans returned before 5 p.m. A six-passenger van costs
$58 per day, gets 18 mpg and holds 16 gallons of gas. An 11-passenger van
costs $92 per day, gets 12 mpg and also has a 16-gallon tank. The company
charges $2.50 per gallon for vehicles returned without a full tank of
gas.
Victor emphasizes the need to keep costs under $2.40 per voter, including gas and van rental expenses. He explains that drivers allow five minutes for loading and unloading voters, and that for voting time they figure ten minutes for the first voter and one minute for each additional voter.
Victor suddenly experiences pain in his right side. He blames it on stress, saying he will finish the drivers' itineraries in the morning.
During a telephone conversation, Jasper tells Larry Peterson that "Ms.
Clayton doesn't want to dump on Cumberland City," but adds that Mayor
Miller's office released a report claiming a 15 percentage point lead for
him. Larry says he would like to help Ms. Clayton, but he will be out of
town. He mentions that paper makes up 40 percent of all trash.
Marcus gets a phone call saying that Victor has been
taken to Trenton General for an emergency appendectomy, and he won't be
able to finish the drivers' schedules. Tracy and Marcus decide that this
is their chance to help their mother by completing the remaining drivers'
schedules. They both agree that they will need to plan ahead if they are
going to do the schedules right.