So, there will be a runoff to determine who is to be Denton’s mayor. If the city wants to save money, they can probably have it in a booth at Chili’s. Election officials might have to drag over an extra chair, but we doubt it.

In a city of just more than 100,000 souls, 55,289 of them registered voters, a paltry 3,330 people turned out to vote for the leading official of the government that is closest to them and affects their lives the most often, and in the most basic ways. Too bad we couldn’t have coaxed three more slackers to the polls; the shameful statistic would have been easier to remember.

Veteran City Council member Mark Burroughs led the ticket with a measly 1,620 votes. Even with that pitiful count, he almost managed to avoid a runoff, getting 48.6 percent of the vote in a field of four. (Incumbent Mayor Perry McNeill will be the other runoff participant. He got 1,305 votes — 39.2 percent.)

There is something in us that wishes one of the candidates — at this point we don’t care much which one — had won a clear majority. Then, at least we would have had a mayor elected by some 6 percent of the voters. If history is any indication, the mayoral runoff on June 14 will attract even fewer voters. It is not inconceivable that our next mayor might be elected with fewer than 1,000 votes. It would be hard to explain to an interested outsider how we can call our government a “representative democracy” when our leaders are chosen by such a miniscule portion of the electorate.

Normally this would be a time for students of politics to begin handicapping the runoff — the conventional wisdom says it’s a bad thing to lead the ticket. Any such theories get knocked into a cocked hat, however, when the voting numbers are so low. There is no favorite for June 14; it is anybody’s race, and we don’t have much enthusiasm for the game when it may be decided by a group that more resembles a committee than a voting populace.

The two survivors’ primary task is now to make sure that they can get as many of their original supporters back to the polls a second time, and that they can coax a few of the also-rans’ backers to do the same, but vote for them this time around.

Normally, a candidate does this by advertising in one form or another, but both McNeill and Burroughs have spent prodigiously on their election campaigns already. Only they know if they have anything left in the kitty with which to sway the voters. Burroughs, the biggest spender in the race, spent something approaching $40 a vote to attain his lofty first-place position; we could forgive him for wondering how many more votes he can afford at that rate.