{"id":10124,"date":"2018-04-17T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10124"},"modified":"2018-04-16T12:02:20","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T16:02:20","slug":"council-at-large-undervoting-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10124","title":{"rendered":"Council At-Large Undervoting, Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

In Part One<\/a>, we learned that even though voters can vote for up to four Council At-Large candidates, they vote for only three on average.\u00a0 Today we examine whether that statistic varies based on geography.<\/p>\n

The chart below shows the total number of Council At-Large votes cast in the 2014 Democratic primary, the total number of Democratic votes for Governor and the ratio between the two from precinct votes on Election Day.\u00a0 (Precinct-level turnout numbers from the state include early voters, absentee voters and provisional voters, distorting their use as a denominator, so we used votes for Governor as a proxy for Election Day voters by precinct.)\u00a0 On average, each Democratic voter cast three votes for Council At-Large candidates.\u00a0 That statistic varied very little between Congressional districts, state legislative districts and council districts.<\/p>\n

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

Let\u2019s take a deeper dive and look at local areas.\u00a0 Again, there is minimal variation.\u00a0 A mild outlier is Precinct 11-00 in Dickerson, home of at-large challenger Beth Daly.\u00a0 Was there some undervoting there for Daly and her 2014 teammate, at-large incumbent Marc Elrich?\u00a0 (The two finished first and second in that precinct and smoked everyone else.)\u00a0 One note: the term Democratic Crescent<\/a> refers to Cabin Branch, Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Downtown Silver Spring and Takoma Park, areas which tend to exert disproportionate impact on Democratic primaries.<\/p>\n

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

Over and over, we have seen that the average Democratic primary voter casts three votes for Council At-Large candidates.\u00a0 That statistic has been stable over time and does not vary much by voting mode (early, election day, absentee or provisional), geography, presence of open seats or candidate count.\u00a0 We see no reason why it would be significantly different in this election.\u00a0 What does that mean?<\/p>\n

One obvious implication relates to one of the hottest places to find votes in a MoCo primary: the Downcounty areas of Downtown Silver Spring, Takoma Park and nearby locations to the north and northeast.\u00a0 Hans Riemer, Evan Glass, Will Jawando, Danielle Meitiv, Chris Wilhelm, Brandy Brooks, Seth Grimes, Cherri Branson, Jill Ortman-Fouse and Jarrett Smith are among the candidates who are from there and\/or are running hard there.\u00a0 If each voter is only voting for three at-large candidates, there simply are not enough votes to go around for all of the above candidates.\u00a0 Who emerges from that scrum?<\/p>\n

Riemer ought to finish first in that area.\u00a0 He is not just the only incumbent in the race; he also finished second in Downtown Silver Spring, Takoma Park and Kensington to Marc Elrich in 2014, his best places of finish anywhere in the county.\u00a0 The next tier might be Glass, Jawando, Ortman-Fouse and Grimes, all of whom have done well in prior races in that area.\u00a0 How many votes are available there for anyone else?<\/p>\n

One of the greatest challenges of running for Council At-Large is how to allocate scarce resources across a vast county-wide electorate in the face of lots of competition and other draws on voters\u2019 attention.\u00a0 Those candidates who successfully target the voters who align with their values, message, bio and (in some instances) demographic will have a leg up on their less strategic rivals.\u00a0 With only three at-large votes per voter, the premium on strategic engagement is higher than ever.\u00a0 It might just be decisive in an exciting and historic race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. In Part One, we learned that even though voters can vote for up to four Council At-Large candidates, they vote for only three on average.\u00a0 Today we examine whether that statistic varies based on geography. The chart below shows the total number of Council At-Large votes cast in the 2014 Democratic primary, … Continue reading Council At-Large Undervoting, Part Two<\/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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,209],"tags":[1545,1933],"class_list":["post-10124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-council-at-large","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-council-at-large"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2Di","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124","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=10124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10127,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124\/revisions\/10127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}