by Jack
It started out as a little research on voter demographics to explain why Chicoans keep electing progressives and then I ran into some unusual numbers.
If you go the Butte County Elections website like I did, you will be given a menu for various details about the last election. (Feel free to double check my numbers.) For instance, I found there are 47,075 registered voters in Chico, which almost seems high for a population of 86,949. We must not have a lot of under 18 in Chico??
Of the total voters, 16,079 are registered as democrats, 13,575 are registered as republicans. Please stay with me, I’m going to throw a lot of numbers out here.
Now in the
last city election there were a total of 106,780 votes cast for 4 council candidates. So, if everyone voted for 4 candidates we could say exactly 26,694 people voted. But, some under voted, casting 3 or less votes. And there were some that over voted casting 5 of more votes, presumably by accident, plus 143 people who wrote in names. Anyway, it appears that roughly 23-24% of the eligible voters actually bothered to vote. That’s a little pathetic and doesn’t say much about our Chico voters. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the vote count by political affiliation per candidate because this is a a so-called non-partisan race. That would make things a bit easier to understand, if it was available.
You might think the democrats would have the edge in any city election because they are ahead in registered voters by nearly 2,500 votes. But, if you look at the [ inactive ] roll by party we find that 9,752 dems didn’t vote in the last election, compared to 3,670 republicans. Now that makes the turnout by party 9752 dems to 9905 reps and the reps have the edge! Conservatives should be slightly more electable, right?
So, my question to all you bright people out here is, how in the heck could 3 of the 4 council seats go liberal democrats?
What makes it stranger is the top vote getter (Ann Schwab) drew 14% of the vote with 15,015 votes. Now remember, there were 4 seats available and roughly 26,694 people voted 4 times, one vote for each candidate of their choice. This indicates that more than 1 out of every 2 voters voted for Schwab?
How could this be unless the reps were voting totally stupid? I dunno, something does add up in my old brain. Granted, maybe it’s my math, but until someone can explain where I’m going wrong, this doesn’t look plausible. These numbers mean a large number of republicans must have voted for the liberals and I’m having trouble believing that. The only other explanation is that somebody changed their vote to go to democrat candidates or a few people voted many times pretending to be someone else. Conspiratorial I admit, but it makes more sense than assuming rep voters are that uninformed and dense. Yes, yes, we all know this was a non-partisan race, but that doesn’t matter. In a small town like Chico there’s no hiding political affiliations of council candidates and you couldn’t possibly fool that many people to vote against their party candidates….at least I like to think that!
Your thoughts?
I think there are a lot of voters from both parties that fit into the low information category. They vote because they thunk its their civic duty, they vote as mom n dad did, or they vote for the name they recognize without knowing much about the person’s ideology and political bent. The numbers of these people seem to be fairly high across the country…it’s a simple answer but it makes sense to me…name recognition is why Schwab, and most incumbents, get elected over and over again.
I don’t know how in the heck could 3 of the 4 council seats could go to liberal Democrats but it seems to me that if every registered Republican in Chico would commit to vote, we could cream the honorable opposition.
Allow me this revision of the above.
I don’t know how in the heck could 3 of the 4 council seats could go to liberal Democrats but it seems to me that if every registered Republican in Chico would commit to vote, and conservative candidates would agree not to split that vote, we could cream the honorable opposition.
Here’s what I thunk.
Tina is right with the name recognition, but Pie nailed it with voter turnout. The registered Republican voters going to vote has declined every presidential election since 2004. Since our city council election is in Nov. the turnout would also be down. But, according the Faith and Freedom Coalition voter turnout for evangelicals and Catholics was up in 2012 for Mitt Romney compared to the 2008 numbers for John McCain by a record breaking 27%. Where were Chico’s people of faith? Did they stay home or did they also turnout in equal numbers?
Pie is 100% right about splitting the vote. What we saw with the Chico city council’s last election and Dan Logue running for both the state’s senate and assembly seat can only be described as a circular firing squad. Someone needs to provide direction, mentorship and coordination. We need good candidates to run, but we need a local-level leader to get them elected.
Republican Turnout in 2012 Less than 2008 and 2004:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/11/republican-turnout-in-2012-election-less-than-2008-and-2004/
Poll: Evangelical Turnout Increased in 2012 Over 2008:
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/11/07/poll-evangelical-turnout-increased-in-2012-over-2008/
Cat herding time…
We tried to run a slate. This is where the conservative candidates pooled their resources and put out a flier to let people know who they were and what they stood for and they were creamed! Worst idea yet.
We’ve tried fund raising..that’s really tough. In the last election most top candidates raised between $6,000-10,000, but spent only an average of $3,000? I thought that was odd. The one candidate that spent the most, Coolidge, lost. He spent over $10k.
Maybe candidates need help in spending their money where it will do the most good?
Despite our conservative outreach, education and outright pleading from the Rep Central Committee, Rep Women Federated, Tea Party, etc., …the best we got was a low 24% voter turnout and, I’m guessing based on the results, a lot of low information conservatives voted for far left liberal candidates.
But, the S has hit the fan! Things are changing fast and those who voted for the old gang of lefties coming out of the ‘Esplanade League” should be embarassed. Maybe…just maybe we finally stand a chance of electing some adults to the council? But, the old question still remains… how does a small core group of dedicted people get apathetic, low information, quasi-conservative, voters to the polls and with enough knowledge to so they will punch the right boxes?
And just as important…how do you get the right number of candidates to run?
We tried that the last two times. We spoke like Dutch Uncles to candidates and we didn’t change anyone’s mind. They did exactly what they wanted to do and of course it was their right to run. We had to respect the fact that they even wanted to run…so few ever do! So, it’s a hard thing to get a decent, determined candidate to stand down for the good of community and help those we think can win in order to change the council from leftists to adults. That’s a real hard sell. We would have better luck trying to educate voters.
Yes Peggy and Pie there is a lot of confusion in the Conservative party, mostly due to their own devise, or devastation as the case would seem. There should be no need in a local election like Chico’s to run so many candidates that the vote is split along the lines of a high school popularity contest, Who ever is next to be the Conservative co coordinator needs to learn this lesson before the next City council election. If it is three or four seats, Limit your candidates to just the number needed to fill those seats, If only for the sake of the community just campaign people enough to fill the oppositions seats. Cull the best from who is deserving to serve on the council, then everyone get on board and support them to turn our city around. Conservative councils of the past have created surplus budgets, and maintained effective Police and Fire Departments by applying budget basics to spending limits or priorities’, obviously this is something the past liberal majority Councils have ignored, Instead they spend their time and our money on artificial (plastic is another word ) or self serving issues that only hinder Chico’s financial prosperity. Not to mention how they turn deaf when they falsely claim to seek public input. The past special meeting on homeless problems called by the Mayor is the most resent example. Fresh thinking gets Chico a fresh start,