This is Martin Cole’s season to shine.
And he can thank data maven George Laase for halo’ing the City Clerk’s hairless pate with the traditional symbol of world-class accuracy.
Throughout the nearly three-hour ordeal of counting votes last evening in the three-seat City Council election, the good-humored Mr. Cole kept xeroxing one theme:
Voter turnout larger than anticipated.
In an environment where 86 percent of voters boycott the polls so they are not tempted, Mr. Cole kept insisting the turnout was more encouraging than the 14 percent in the last Council race.
The major domo of city clerks found creative ways to convey his conviction to his Council Chambers audience and television watchers.
Enter the ever-ready Mr. Laase with his dynamite data:
- Voter turnout leaped 50 percent over the 2014 election – from 14 percent to 21.85 percent. Who knows why?
- The majority of Culver City residents prefer to go to the polls on Election Day rather than mailing it in, though the gap is dieting. Mail-ins, 4.679, 44.3 percent. Same-day voting, 5,878, 55.7 percent.
- Best neighborhood turnouts, says Mr. Laase, were in Sunkist Park, 1,267, and Vets Park-Studio Estates, 1,181.
- While champion incumbent Meghan Sahli-Wells was winning a second term in a yawning breeze, here is a Mr. Laase statistic that is at least revealing if not significant. In the process of winning 25 of 26 precincts, Ms. Sahli-Wells was named on 62.5 percent of mail-in ballots, a mere 41.6 of Election Day ballots. What does that mean?
Could be that the usually extremely well organized progressive community was even more tightly monitored this time. Leaders made certain that their troops turned in their ballots well ahead of Election Day, virtually assuring she would be the No. 1 vote magnet. No other faction in Culver City is nearly as closely knit and organized as progressives.
Mr. Laase made the following pertinent observations:
- Of the 10,557 votes counted last night, 56.4 percent went to the progressive slate of Meghan Sahli-Wells, Thomas Small and Daniel Lee.
- Ms. Sahli-Wells’s support was dominant. She won all 13 precincts and ran so well city-wide that she only lost two races out of 26 precincts (mail ballots to the 13 precincts and same-day ballots to the 13). The two she lost: Precinct 22 (Culver West) Election Day returns by one vote and in the mail-in vote in Precinct 31 (El Rincon Elementary area) by 12 votes, both to third-place Göran Eriksson. Ms. Sahli-Wells finished first by over a thousand votes.
- Of the 17,043 possible votes (5,681 ballots x 3), only 10,557 were cast, leaving 38 percent uncast.
I just received this very enlightening information which points out some of the fallacies being touted about town regarding this election and voter turnout.
We should not get caught up in the election turnout numbers, especially since they’re not actually the “record” numbers everyone (including the city) is claiming.
In this election, 4,057 ballots had been counted by the end of election day and some 1,263 VBM and provisionals are still left to be counted, which means 5,310 ballots were cast.
In 2002, the only election for which the city website indicates the actual number of BALLOTS cast, there were 5,994 total ballots cast, so 2016 was not a record turnout (unless 600+ new ballots show up between now and Monday).
Unfortunately, the city does not provide numbers for the total ballots cast in other races, so we have to use some guesstimates. Sahli-Wells has received 2,760 votes so far. She was named on 51.9% of the ballots (2,760/5,310). Using this statistic, it can be assumed she will also be named on 51.9% of the remaining ballots (.519*1,263), meaning she will receive 656 additional votes for a total of 3,416 votes.
In most elections, the top vote-getter topped 3,000 votes. In fact, in 2004, you needed more than 3,300 to finish THIRD and the top vote-getter was well over 3,700 votes.
Here are the top vote-getters in recent elections along with their vote totals (it is noteworthy that in this election, 10,557 votes have been cast so far, but remember that the number of votes cast is ALWAYS larger in races where voter can choose three candidates, not just two … so be sure to remember that when you compare the numbers below and in this election there were 7 candidates):
2002 – Albert Vera (3,184 votes) 2 available seats, 5 candidates – total votes cast: 10,735
2004 – Alan Corlin (3,752 votes) 3 available seats, 6 candidates – total votes cast: 15,448
2006 – Gary Silbiger (3,053 votes) 2 available seats, 3 candidates – total votes cast: 7,853
2008 – Andy Weissman (2,768 votes) 3 available seats, 6 candidates– total votes cast: 7,879
2010 – Scott Malsin (2,911 votes) 2 available seats, 4 candidates – total votes cast: 8,693
2012 – Andy Weissman (3,083 votes) 4 available seats, 6 candidates – total votes cast: 14,905
2014 – Jeff Cooper (2,569 votes), 2 available seats, 4 candidates – total votes cast: 6,757
Total votes cast is different from ballots cast. Look at 2002: 5,994 ballots were cast and if every voter used both of their votes, the total number of votes cast would be 11,988 when the actual number of votes cast was 10,735, which means 1,253 people voted for just one candidate in that race. Steve Rose faced a threshold of, for example, in 2004, where he needed 3,302 votes to finish THIRD.
It was not a record turnout, nor, as illustrated above, will the highest vote getter receive a record number of votes for a candidate.
After reading this information, I am very disappointed in those people who have inflated their role in getting out the vote in this election. The results aren’t good or bad, just average.