{"id":10108,"date":"2018-04-16T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10108"},"modified":"2018-04-15T20:04:41","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T00:04:41","slug":"council-at-large-undervoting-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10108","title":{"rendered":"Council At-Large Undervoting, Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the Montgomery County Council At-Large race, voters can vote for up to four candidates and the leading four vote-getters win.\u00a0 That gives candidates a lot of ways to get votes.\u00a0 A common statement heard from candidates is, \u201cYou have four votes to cast.\u00a0 There are a lot of good candidates in this race.\u00a0 I hope I can earn one of your votes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that statement, while politically appealing, doesn\u2019t actually reflect the reality of at-large voting.\u00a0 Lots of voters don\u2019t cast four votes in the at-large race.\u00a0 On average, they cast only three.<\/p>\n

The chart below shows the total number of Council At-Large votes cast in Democratic primaries and the total number of Democrats voting over the last five cycles.\u00a0 If everyone was casting four at-large votes, the number of at-large votes divided by the number of voters should be four.\u00a0 Instead, the ratio of at-large votes to voters ranges from 3.0 to 3.2, averaging 3.1.\u00a0 That tight range holds regardless of the number of candidates running and the presence of open seats.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What about the timing of votes?\u00a0 The conventional wisdom is that early voters are unusually well informed, know exactly who they\u2019re voting for and can\u2019t wait to vote.\u00a0 If anyone would be willing and able to use all four of their at-large votes, it should be early voters.\u00a0 But in fact, that isn\u2019t true.\u00a0 There is not much difference between early voters, election day voters and absentee voters in terms of how many at-large votes they cast.\u00a0 All of them are right around three each, with provisional voters coming in near 2.5.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Why does this happen?\u00a0 Now we\u2019re in the realm of speculation.\u00a0 Here is a theory.\u00a0 For all its importance to the function of county government, the Council At-Large race is seen by many as a down-ballot affair.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t attract the attention of races for Congress, Governor and Executive.\u00a0 It competes with state legislative and council district races in the voters\u2019 mail, Facebook feeds and email inboxes.\u00a0 The name recognition of incumbents is modest.\u00a0 (How many voters can actually name all their Council Members?)<\/p>\n

Now think about the voting process of the average voter.\u00a0 Perhaps the voter was aided by At-Large Incumbent X in some way, maybe through constituent service or a vote on a bill, master plan or budget item.\u00a0 The voter really likes X and will vote for him.\u00a0 Next, perhaps a voter will pick At-Large Candidate Y because she was endorsed by the Washington Post, the teachers or the Sierra Club.\u00a0 And then perhaps the voter will pick At-Large Candidate Z because a neighbor said something nice about him or handed her his lit.\u00a0 Or maybe Z knocked on the voter\u2019s door.\u00a0 Or maybe Z lives in the same community as the voter.\u00a0 Or maybe Z is the only other candidate the voter recognizes.\u00a0 Or maybe\u2026 you get the idea.\u00a0 Often, these voting decisions do not involve great strategic deliberation or deep research on the candidates.<\/p>\n

But there is one more variable to examine: geography.\u00a0 We have previously written<\/a> that Democrats in Downcounty areas, especially those in the Democratic Crescent (Cabin Branch, Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Downtown Silver Spring and Takoma Park) are much more likely to vote in mid-term primaries than Upcounty Democrats.\u00a0 Do Democrats in Downcounty vote for more at-large candidates than those in Upcounty?\u00a0 We\u2019ll find out in Part Two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. In the Montgomery County Council At-Large race, voters can vote for up to four candidates and the leading four vote-getters win.\u00a0 That gives candidates a lot of ways to get votes.\u00a0 A common statement heard from candidates is, \u201cYou have four votes to cast.\u00a0 There are a lot of good candidates in … Continue reading Council At-Large Undervoting, Part One<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,209],"tags":[1545,1933],"class_list":["post-10108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-council-at-large","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-council-at-large"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2D2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10108"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10112,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108\/revisions\/10112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}