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Chad Speight filed a recount petition today. The recount will be conducted Friday beginning at 9 a.m. But for the full story, just click over to the Herald's web site:
Recount requested in Monona Council race
"Incumbent Speight trails Veserat by just one vote, Wednesday, April 08, 2009"
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
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A couple of thoughts or notes-just because I voted for Obama does not mean I was going to vote for Chad and/or you. Further, just because people voted for Bob does NOT mean those votes would have gone to u or Chad.
ReplyDeleteThis voting for one or two has always intrigued me about Monona. Frankly, I am starting to think it is too bad we did not have districts with one or two seats at large. I think we would have more choices and the cost to get in on the action would be lower.
So-I crunched some numbers and you can tell me if I got it wrong.
Monona had about a total 2,253 voters. I am guessing that number from the state super race. Thus, in the Alder Race-the maximum votes cast could have been 6,759 (2,253 X 3), but it was 5,735. This is a difference of 1,024 votes.
It is hard to calculate how many ballots had one or two votes because some may have had one vote or only two votes, but it appears the number was fairly high. If all 1,024 were one votes (1 ballot =1 vote for alder) that is about 45% of the voters. This would be the highest number of ballots it could be.
The numbers look a little different for school board. There were a total of 4,955 votes cast in the two districts in Monona out of a total of a maximum of 6,759 possible that could have been cast. Thus, there were 1,804 ballots that voted for none, one or two in the school race. The highest percentage of ballots this could be is about 81%.
I will noodle about this some more to see what the bottom would be, but where have I gone wrong with my numbers?
HP
Funny this should come up, because I was talking to some people about this last night. Specifically, we were wondering if we should consider for Monona and/or the School Board the idea of numbered seats. These are NOT seats that represent a specific geographic area, but rather are numbered seats. Madison does this for their School Board and I believe the Town of CG does it for their board seats. So in other words, if I decide to run for city council, I decide which seat I'm going to run for and I run against whomever else is going for that particular seat. Everyone votes for each seat - it's not divided up by geography. So if I like Alderman Smith (Seat 1), but think Alderman Jones (Seat 2) is doing a poor job, or maybe Alderman Jones is not running again, then I run for Seat 2. It stops all this "how many votes should I cast" nonsense. I don't know much about this stuff, so it would be interesting if anyone who reads here has some knowledge on the pros and cons of each method.
ReplyDeleteI know these are non-partisan races, but if I know a candidate generally leans my way in partisan politics, I am certainly more likely to favor that person in a local race.
I am hoping a lot of Miller's votes were "throw-aways." In other words, people symbolically cast a vote for him where otherwise they wouldn't have cast a 2nd or 3rd vote. I would be very sad to hear that so many people are this ill-informed before they vote.
Henny,
ReplyDeleteI think your upper extreme is correct as you can't spread those uncast votes any thinner than one per ballot! For the lower extreme, the minimum number of ballots that could be cast with less than 3 votes can be figured by taking the uncasted votes, 1024, and assuming these were all due to voters who voted for zero alders and since they could have voted for three alders but didn't, you get 1024/3 = 341, or 15% of the voters. We could also be a little more reasonable and assume almost everyone who showed up voted for at least one alder. I think, maybe, that would just double the 341 to 642, or 30%.
Another statistic is the average votes cast per voter, which is 5735/2253, or 2.45 votes per voter.
I think I need a pill.
Yoinks! You guys have wonked me out.
ReplyDeleteyep, so we could say that voters at a low were only happy with 2.45 alders.
ReplyDeleteIn short, there is a lot of caculated (thoughtful) votes and happiness with the choices from all perspectives.
sorry-I meant unhappiness.
ReplyDeletetired,
HP
I am one who voted for just two people on the ballot. One of my two calculated votes was for Miller. Yes, I knew Miller did not want the position. If he (Miller) had won one of the three seats, wouldn't the city council choose his replacement? If the only candidate I had faith in won (he did), he would be able to play a role in the selection of Miller's replacement.
ReplyDelete