It's always easy to make predictions with excellent explanations for why you're right, especially about the past. I correctly predicted first and last place, but I had considered theories under which any of the other 24 combinations of second through fifth could have played out.
The preliminary results of the April 21st School Board election, based on Tom Abbott's box score (which does not reflect absentee ballots and doesn't list the number of voters) shows some interesting results.
A Recap of the Box Score
Incumbent Gervonn Rice won re-election with 1,941 votes. Newcomer Herbert Burack was in second with 1,894 and incumbent Dr. David Diuguid also won re-election with 1,837. Falling short were Howard Rose with 1,769, Patricia King-Butler with 1,167 and Dr. Porfirio Rodriguez with 747.
First through fourth places were separated by only 172 votes, just over 4% of the vote (assuming that budget yeas plus neas equals total votes). Patricia King-Butler was well behind in fifth, 670 votes out of the money, while Dr. Porfirio Rodriguez was almost 1,100 votes behind. Howard Rose (note of disclosure, a candidate whom I supported) was 68 votes behind Dr. David Diuguid in fourth place.
Incumbents have struggled in recent years, with Barbara Ostroth unseated by newcomer Sebastian Rodriguez in 2007. While both incumbents won re-election this year, the pattern by which the longest-serving incumbent gets fewer votes was repeated, with Dr. Diuguid receiving about 100 fewer votes than top-vote-getter Gervonn Rice. Diuguid came in third, behind newcomer Herbert Burack
The Budget Fails
The budget, which had passed by 94 votes last year, failed by a margin of nearly 700 votes this year, about 57%-43%. The budget "passed" (more yeas than neas) in 14 of Teaneck's 21 election districts:
This year, the budget failed narrowly in Districts 1 (voting at Firehouse #3, failing by 7 votes) and 21 (at TJ Middle School, 8 votes short) and failed by wide margins at Districts 9 by a 2-1 margin (at BF Middle School, failing by 111 votes), 10 by a 4-1 margin (at Whittier, failing by 248 votes), 11 by an almost 10-1 margin (also at Whittier, by 358 votes), 12 by a 4-1 margin (at Temple Emeth, by 157 votes) and in 18 by almost 2-1 (at Teaneck High School, failing by 88 votes).
Interestingly, the budget failed in 8 of 21 districts last year, with the results the same in all districts but at much narrower margins, with the changes of passing in District 9 by 2 votes, and failing in 14 (voting at Bryant School) and 16 (at Presbyterian Church); The biggest margin of rejection in 2008 was in District 11, where the budget failed by an almost 4-1 margin, but by only 57 votes.
Turnout! Turnout! Turnout!
The biggest tale of the tape was the jump in turnout, from just under 9.8% last year to 15.8% this year. As in the old real estate adage, it was the location!, location!, location! of these votes that made the difference in both the Board of Ed and the budget vote.
While 14.3% of voters turned up in District 8 last year and 12.6% in District 3, only 6.9% of registered voters in District 11 bothered to vote last year, just percentage points ahead of the 6.8% in District 2, though oddball District 15 had minuscule turnout of 5.9%. The 399 voters who exercised their right to vote in the four West Englewood districts represented 8.2% of registered voters there. The Northeast's 469 voters in its four districts amounted to a turnout of 9.9%, just above the Township average.
The 2009 turnout increase saw almost 1,800 more people vote than the year before. While District 8 (last year's leader) saw turnout jump to 21.7% and district 3 increase to 15.3%, many districts saw little increase in voter turnout. District 1 had 8.7% last year, but only went up to 9.7% yesterday. Only 8.3% voted at District 2 this year, an increase of 26 voters from last year's near laggard value of 6.8%. The 101 people who turned out in District 11 last year at 6.9% of the eligible voters, soared to 446 voters at a 28.0% turnout. the 1,402 voters in West Englewood represented the addition of 1,000 voters and a turnout rate of 26.5%. triple the year before's percentage. The Northeast had 549 voters, an increase of 80 from 2008, and a turnout of 10.4%, half-a-point better than the 2008 level.
More than any other factor, it was turnout that told the story. If turnout rates were equal in all districts, Howard Rose is in, Herbert Burack is out and the budget passes.
Votes per Voter
While we were all given three votes to select members of the Board of Education, the average voter chose 2.32 votes per voter, with signs of possible bullet voting. Most districts were near the average, several much higher (one perhaps shocklingly so, though there is a perfectly reasonable explanation) and a few much lower.
By my calculations, every voter in District 13 (at Bryant) voted for exactly three candidates and those in District 14 (also Bryant) cast a staggering 3.15 votes per voter (likely due to many budget non-votes), District 2's voters (Firehouse #3) cast 2.94 votes per voter, District 17 (Rodda) cast 2.87, District 7 (Lowell) cast a ratio of 2.86, while 2.80 votes were cast by District 6's voters (at Classic Residence).
By contrast, voters in District 11 (Whittier) voted an estimated 1.66 votes per voter, while the ratio was 1.74 in District 10 (also Whittier).
The Candidates (in order of finish)
Gervonn Rice (1,941 votes) won partially by winning the most districts of all six candidates, and by coming in the money (ranked first, second or third) in 15 of the 21 districts. She won 8 districts outright, took second in 2 and came in third in 5. She came in fourth, her worst showing, in Districts 9, 10, 11, 12, 18 and 20, which closely track the districts that rejected the budget. Rice edged fellow incumbent Dr. David Diuguid in only 10 of 21 districts, losing by moderate margins where she lost but winning by significant edges in Districts 13, 14, 16 and 17, the primary districts in the Northeast, where she received support from 77.2% of the voters. In the four West Englewood districts (9 through 12), Rice received 19.5% of the voters.
Herbert Burack (1,894 votes) was this year's hare, winning the same six districts in which Rice came in fourth, but falling out of the money in all of the 15 other districts, including fourth place in 3, fifth place in another 3 and last in 9 districts. The districts where Burack had the least success were the Northeast districts 13, 14, 16 and 17, where he eked out only 8.6% of the votes, getting only eight votes in District 13 and just breaking into double digits in the other 3. West Englewood's four districts gave him 1,206 votes, representing 86.0% of the voters there and 63.6% of the votes he received township-wide.
Dr. David Diuguid (1,837 votes) played the role of the tortoise, winning re-election with a slow and steady approach. He was in the money in all but one district, winning three, coming second in six and third in another 11. He was out of the money only in District 15, where he was a single vote behind Howard Rose. Diuguid came in third in three of the Northeast's main districts and second in the fourth, all of which were won by Rice. In West Englewood, Dr. Diuguid came in third in all four districts, behind Howard Rose, winning 24.5% of the voters there.
Howard Rose (1,769 votes) fell just short, 68 votes behind Dr. Diuguid. He won three districts, 5 (American Legion), 6 (Classic Residence) and 8 (Lowell), all located south of Route 4. He came in second in eight districts (including all four in West Englewood) and third in another three. He was out of the money in seven districts, coming in fourth in six districts (including three of four in the Northeast) and fifth in one (the other Northeast district). Where Rose won, he didn't win by big enough margins to edge into a seat.
Patricia King-Butler (1,167) came in a distant fifth. She did not win any districts, coming second in Districts 13, 14, 15 and 16 and third in District 17. King-Butler came in fourth in six districts, fifth in nine and last in one. The bulk of her support was in the Northeast, where she received 34.9% of her overall votes in the four main districts, receiving 85% of Rice's votes in Districts 13 and 14, about 75% in District 16 and 60% of Rice's votes in 17. King-Butler came in a distant fifth in the four West Englewood districts, receiving only 12.3% of the 1,402 votes cast there.
Dr. Porfirio Rodriguez (747) was not a factor township-wide, but showed signs of support in small pockets of the community. Dr. Rodriguez started off fast, if you looked at results in district order, winning District 1 with 46 votes and a margin of 3, but didn't finish in the top three in any other district. Dr. Rodriguez finished fourth in three districts, fifth in six and last in eleven districts.
The Neighborhood Watch
For the sake of convenience, I will divide Teaneck into three "neighborhoods", all of which have some strong (or not so strong) common characteristics. West Englewood includes the four districts 9 through 12, north of Route 4 and west of the CSX tracks. The Northeast includes districts 13, 14, 16 and 17, which are also north of Route 4, but east of the tracks. The newly-coined moniker SoRoFo includes the 12 districts South of Route Four, and was conceived in a state of caffeine-fueled mania, after drinking about 290 of the 300 cups of iced coffee I bought at Dunkin' Donuts yesterday on the solemn occasion of Iced Coffee Day; The Espresso shots were probably a mistake and they were supposed to last at least a week or two. District 15, which covers the area around State Street oftened called "The Apartments" is an oddball district including a wide mix of more-transient residents who are far less likely than those of all other districts to be registered voters and (if registered) turn out to vote in numbers far smaller than other districts, leading to results that are rather muddled and tell little about trends. I will ignore the district in some calculations and lump it with the other four Northeast districts on other occasions.
To be continued (and edited) as time and data permit.... I will continue the recap today, adding absentee votes when they come in and getting the actual number of voters from the "tapes" at the Municipal Building. Let me know what your thoughts are so far and if there are any other stats we Wednesday Morning Quarterbacks may want to analyze.
Details on turnout (overall, by district and by "neighborhood") was added at 1:00 PM
Alan Sohn
Parade Or Disruption?
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In its wisdom, the township has decided to disenfranchise a large part of
the community by insisting on holding the Independence Day Parade on the
morning...
4 months ago
20 comments:
There weren't any middle-aged, green-eyed, astigmatic humanist women in the race, so I had no one to vote for.
Seriously, thank you Alan for being a detail-oriented insomniac.
Congrats to the winning candidates. We've all got our work cut out for us to keep Teaneck the kind of place where we can all be proud to call home. Let's try to bring put the best in each other, shall we?
(assuming that budget yeas plus neas equals total votes)There is potentially a good deal of error in that assumption, with turnout historically being as much as 10% or more higher than budget vote. I'm guessing you'll find the spread to be narrower in districts that overwhelmingly voted down the budget and wider in those that passed it.
I'm guessing you'll find the spread to be narrower in districts that overwhelmingly voted down the budget and wider in those that passed it. Actually spread should be greater. Anti-budget people only had one candidate to vote for.
(assuming that budget yeas plus neas equals total votes)There is potentially a good deal of error in that assumption.And the Municipal clerk has made this far more challenging by not listing the number of voters per district on the tape. The only way to obtain that data is to add up the numbers from each of the tapes from each individual voting machine.
Even with only having four buttons to click -- three for Board of Ed and one for the budget -- the fact that the budget vote box is ALL THE WAY on the right, leads many to miss it or just forget. Our voting machines will not allow you to overvote (casting more votes than the number you can cast), but there is no undervote warning that might remind voters that they have more choices that they can make.
I clearly agree that the assumption that total votes per district equals the total budget votes is not accurate, as can be seen by District 14 having voters vote for more than three votes per voter, as well as having Gervonn Rice receive more votes (170) than the total of budget votes there (159).
Alan Sohn
The difference between last year's budget passage and this year's failure is a massive depression in the industries (finance/law) employing Teaneck citizens in the interval.
The difference between last year's budget passage and this year's failure is a massive depression in the industries (finance/law) employing Teaneck citizens in the interval.A lot of people in all industries are hurting right now & it's not the time to raise taxes. The people of Teaneck have spoken & hopefully the Town Council & BoE heard them.
Congratulations to the BOE members.
Let's get to work... we'll be watching!
Alan, I totally agree. The layout for the ballot is horrible. It seems almost like instructions in fine print on the right side of the ballot, and many people get tunnel visioned on the selection of candidates. The layout should be completely overhauled.
In reviewing the results of this election, it might be tempting to say that given the state of the economy, it is not surprising that any budget calling for an increase was voted down. However, state-wide, over 70% of the school budgets were approved. I hope that both the BoE and the Town Council listen to the voice of the people on this one and make more than symbolic cuts.
The budget was voted down by a significant margin. I don't want to hear arguments about the relatively small amount of people who vote. When a similar percentage of the populace approved of the budget in years passed, I didn't hear advocates of the budget dismiss those votes as unrepresentative.
So to quote or at least paraphrase Nancy Pelosi - "we did not get elected to split the difference." In implementing the will of Teaneck voters, I hope the BoE and Town Council adopt a similar attitude.
Does Rose appeal? He would have finished third if the two West Englewood voting places had opened on time.
I've been voting for about 5 years now in Teaneck and can't understand why my taxes need to pay for 4 poll workers. Even in the last presidential election, I've walked in, was the only person online, and was done and out in 30 seconds. There are 3 separate lines and poll workers for A-H, I-N, and O-Z. Can't they find someone who paid attention in school and learnt the entire alphabet? Then, a 4th poll worker is needed to insert the paper with the signature in the voting machine. How many thousands of dollars would be saved by eliminating all but 2 poll workers at every election district?
Alan, Thanks for posting all this great info. For a newbie like me it is really interesting and informative to see the breakdown of the neighborhoods.
The info about the polling places opening late is very disturbing. I hope Rose appeals.
Goodness knows it should never be taken lightly when a snafu at the polls results in anyone's disenfranchisement. One could have hoped that if the poll workers were locked out as well, they might have taken the names of all the people who showed up to vote and couldn't wait around.
That said, we all know how OOR likes to inflame. The article says the polls opened sometime after 7 a.m. which presumably means before 7:30. So how many voters do you think showed up at those two polling stations and had to leave before they opened?
Obviously, it would have to be at least 68, and even then you'd have to assume that 100% of them would have voted for Rose and that none of them (0%) would have voted for Diuguid.
Let's wildly overestimate and say that the "handful of voters" the Record said missed out on voting totaled 100 people at each of the two polling stations. But let's also say that they would have voted at the same rate other voters in their respective districts voted the rest of the day.
Of the hypothetical 100 voters who missed out at BF, 32 or 33 would have voted for Burack, 21 or 22 would have voted for Rose, and 17 or 18 would have voted for Diuguid. So Rose nets 5 votes at most.
Of the hypothetical 100 voters who missed voting at Temple Emeth, 43 or 44 would have voted for Burack, 19 or 20 would have voted for Rose, and 13 or 14 would have voted for Diuguid. So Rose nets 7 votes at most.
Thus, in this wildly overestimated scenario, the 68-vote spread between Rose and Diuguid tightens to 56.
Again, it's always a serious matter when someone who wants to vote can't. But it's hard to see how it would have changed the overall outcome of this election.
And I say that as someone who would have loved to see Rose elected along with Diuguid.
Come on Jeff, if your theory stands, why have voting at all?
Let's just use the results of the latest Quinnipiac Poll to determine election winners.
My theory: Those who wanted to vote at 7 am likely were hard working people from the West Englewood neighborhood who had to catch a bus to the city where they earned their money to pay day school tuitions as well as property taxes to teaneck to fund the public schools that their kids don't use. They were probably more "Burack" inclined than people who had the "leisure" to show up at 1pm.
That's right Jeff.
Only hardworking Jews have to get up at 7 a.m. to pay for the lowly lazy scum who go to public school.
Just ask OOR - who is one of the greatest causes of anti-semitism anywhere.
To anyone reading this blog, please understand that OOR is not an Orthodox Jew, he/she/it just pretends to be one.
Quite obvious from the photo of a woman wearing a man's phylacteries that accompanies "her" screeds.
Alan, I'm not sure that comparing this year's turnout to last year's is altogether instructive, as last year's election wasn't competitive (only three candidates running for three seats). Granted, there was also far less contention over the budget, unlike this year when it certainly drove turnout in those districts where it lost by landslide margins (coupled with a candidate who ran against the budget).
I know that after the election of two years ago, we wanted to get turnout figures then as well. I don't think we ever did, but that might be a better benchmark for comparing turnout this year.
Jeff, actually, comparing to last year's race is the perfect baseline. The 2008 vote was one where only but the most committed voters would show up.
Turnout was the key to this election, and the jump in the number of voters was far from even across the board. As I've stated, of the 1,800 person increase in the number of voters, almost 1,000 were in the four West Englewood districts, while the increase was 80 in the four primary districts in the Northeast.
My home District 11 saw turnout spike by about 350 voters, with a percentage climbing from just under 7.0% in 2008 (one of the lowest) to 28.0% on Tuesday (one of the highest). Of the 1,800 increase in voters one out of five came from only one district.
If turnout percentage had been equal across all of Teaneck, Rose is in, Burack is out and the budget passes. Anyone who believes that this should have been the result of the election is going to have to figure out a way to increase turnout by "their" voters, across the board. This can be best seen by comparing turnout to what amounts to the background levels of 2008.
Alan Sohn
Alan - You forgot to mention that it was raining on Tuesday.
You sold me, Alan, with the caveat that 2008 was a lower-than-usual turnout year. But as you say, perhaps that makes it a better baseline for analyzing this year's results.
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